The shocking news that Christopher Columbus was Greek—in this excellent essay by Chicago writer James Banakis–may have come as a surprise to our friends Sal and Ben Carmada from Joseph’s Finest Meats and to all my wife Betty’s relatives back home in Montemaggiore Belisto Sicily. But independent journalism always must seek the truth. And the truth about Columbus in Chicago is that the monuments and statues honoring the great  explorer were attacked by the hysterical political left hoping to erase him from our common Western history. But the communists can’t ever erase his heroism. Columbus is a father of the West.

John Kass

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By James Banakis

October 11^th, 2026

I love Italian cinema. It has none of the gratuitous glitter of Hollywood films. Italian movies usually take place with surprising photographic style and a deep connection to everyday life. Like the unsurpassed Cinema Paradiso, it demonstrates empathy and family tradition.

The women are beautiful, real, and passionate. The men are seamlessly vulnerable yet masculine.

Sergio Leone, the pioneer and master of the spaghetti western, directed the seminal “Dollars Trilogy,” that are forever rewatchable. Even

American films about the Italian American experience i.e. The Godfather, win me over. My favorite scene, Clemenza teaching Michael how to make a Sunday sauce. Need I mention I would choose Italian cuisine above all others.

My best loved of the genre is the 1991 film Mediterraneo, a comedydrama set during WWII, and concerns a group of Italian soldiers who occupy an insignificant Greek Island in the Aegean. The Greeks ignore them going about their simple, idyllic lives and the occupiers unassumingly become absorbed into the island culture forgetting there’s a war going on, and in spirit they surrender and become Greek.

I’ll admit it. I’m a Italophile. I love all things Italian especially the expression, “una faccia, una razza,” which translates literally to “one face, one race” and describes the close cultural, historical, and physical relationship between Italians and Greeks.

So, I ask you, my Italian American brethren to forgive me this sacrilege, but after careful analysis I can safely disclose to the world that Christopher Columbus was most likely of Greek or Byzantine ancestry whose roots trace back to the 14^th century Genoese occupied Island of Chios, birthplace of the poet, Homer. What follows is my evidence.

Classics professor Victor Davis Hanson chose May 29, 1453, the fall of Constantinople, as one of the most significant dates in human history. When Constantinople finally fell to the Ottomans, the Byzantine Empire and its capital had up to that point survived for over 1,000 years beyond the fall of the Western Empire at Rome.

The fall of Constantinople contributed to the Renaissance by driving an influx of Greek scholars and classical manuscripts into Western Europe, particularly Italy. Byzantine philosophers, scientists, artists, and teachers fled westward.  These refugees carried rare, original texts by classical Greek thinkers like Plato and Aristotle that had been long forgotten or lost in Western Europe.

Keep in mind, the period between the fall of Rome and the beginning of the Renaissance was known as the dark ages for a reason. The prevailing wisdom in the West was that the earth was flat. Byzantine Greeks knew from the time of Aristotle that the earth was in fact a sphere and even calculated its diameter 2,000 years before. Coumbus knew this as he was trying to find western route to India. The Ottomans were making trade in the eastern Mediterranean dangerous and costly.

Columbus never said he was from Genoa. He said he was from the Republic of Genoa, something much different. The island of Chios was part of the Republic of Genoa. There is no definitive proof he was a member of the Columbo family of Genoa, who were illiterate wool weavers.

In the middle of the 15^th century a person in such a family never could have acquired the learning, experience and spirituality that Columbus had to convince a foreign king and queen to entrust a small navy and a fortune to him. It is more likely that for Columbus to have received an audience with a king and queen he would have to be royal himself with impeccable seafaring experience. There are several Greek connections. He lived in Chios in 1474-75. There were several extensive visits and interaction throughout his life.

Columbus’ son Ferdinand said that his family had always been men of the sea and referred to several Greeks including Coumbus’ Greek chief navigator, as having “our name and family.”

Columbus and his family had a strong connection to the town of Pyrgi on Chios in the mastic producing region. Even today the name Columbos is a popular surname there.

Columbus’ ‘parea’ was Greek, his group of friends and associates.

Columbus kept his journals in Greek, not Italian which he didn’t speak well. Of the 7 languages he spoke, he was most fluent in Greek.

Columbus signed his name, Christopher with a Greek letter “X”

Columbus made notes in the margins of all his favorite books in Greek.

Columbus kept his navigational records using Greek measurements.

Columbus wrote about and loved mastic gum which he brought along and chewed on his famous voyage in 1492. Mastic grows only on the Island of Chios.

Finally, under Genoese rule, Chios achieved immense wealth and economic stability through the systematic commercial monopoly of mastic gum, a resin unique to the island’s southern region. In the 15^th century people from the Aegean islands controlled by Genoa, identified as Genoese.

Modern Chios boasts a proud ancient maritime and seafaring heritage.  Chios, along with the nearby small island of Oinousses—is historically home to many of Greece’s most powerful shipping magnates and families.

There is a philosophical term, Verisimilitude  used to label a theory that may not be completely true but is closer to the truth than any other competing theory.

This is my Verisimilitude after analysis:

Recently (2002) Columbus’ bones were examined for DNA testing. The bone fragments match those of his brother and his son, so they were his. They were so old and compromised however; that his nationality and likely birthplace could not be identified.

It is likely that Columbus was a Byzantine Prince and sailor from the island of Chios in what was then the Republic of Genoa.

I like to imagine much like the Italian soldiers who occupied the Greek Island in the film, Mediterraneo, 14^th century Genoese occupied Island of Chios, and unwittingly became Greek. After that things and people got a bit mixed up just like in the movie.  The Aegean islands have always had that effect on visitors or invaders. Hence the term, “una faccia, una razza,” 

In today’s world this is particularly true with a lovely Sicilian and a Greek friend of mine, both who also love Italian films.

 In America, and specifically in Chicago, some people, especially Lori Lightfoot, are upset with Christopher Columbus because his historical legacy is tied to the enslavement, violence, and decline of indigenous populations in the Americas. All rubbish!

After my research I now feel I have a cultural and ethnic connection to O Kyrios Columbos. At the very least, he was a philhellene (one who loves all things Greek), so I’m asking the Greek government to grant him honorary Greek citizenship. I’ve noticed the Greek government has been passing out citizenship like free samples lately.

Mayor Lightfoot removed 2 statues of Columbus which were erected during the 1933 World’s Fair. I understand that they are being held captive by the Chicago Park District.

Remember my Italian brethren, if you need help locating those 2 missing statues, me and a few of my buddies would be glad to help retrieve them.  We’ll put one at the intersection of Taylor Street and Loomis, and the other on Halsted and Van Buren. They’ll be safe for ever more in both locations. See, I’m willing to share.

Stay tuned for my next research project, substantiating pizza was invented by the Greeks and misappropriated by the Romans.

Source Material:

 A NEW THEORY CLARIFYING THE IDENTITY OF CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS: A BYZANTINE PRINCE FROM CHIOS, GREECE.

by Ruth G Durlacher-Wolper

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Jimmy Banakis is a life-long restaurateur.  He was an honorary batboy for the White Sox in 1964. He attended Oak Park River Forest High School, Nebraska Wesleyan University, and Chicago-Kent Law School.  He claims the kitchen is the room he’s most comfortable in anywhere in the world. He published an extremely limited-edition family cookbook. He’s a father and grandfather, and lives in Downers Grove Il.