The discovery of the Libro de los Epítomes sent such powerful shockwaves through the relevant scholarly communities that the news hit the headlines in the spring of 2019. You can read one such article here, or listen to an interview here.

The discovery had its origins in 2013, when Guy Lazure, a historian of early modern Spain at the University of Windsor, happened to be given the manuscript to look at during a research trip to the Arnamagnæan Institute in Copenhagen. Fortunately he had previously encountered the distinctive numbering system that Colón used for his books, so although the manuscript does not mention Colón’s library, he was soon able to conjecture that it was a related bibliographical tool. Unfortunately Colón was tangential to Lazure’s research, so he just noted his observation down and moved on. Nothing unusual there: scholars who work with manuscripts make similar conjectures all the time, and only a Colón expert would have recognized the significance of this particular one. Five years later, then, the manuscript was still thought to be lost.

The next step was taken late in 2018 by Kıvılcım Yavuz, a postdoc who was cataloguing the manuscripts of Spanish origin at the Arnamagnæan Institute. She and her colleagues had emailed scholars who had consulted these manuscripts and asked if they had any findings to share, whereupon Lazure mentioned what he had noticed in 2013. Following this lead, Yavuz spotted the close relationship between this manuscript and the partial draft at the Biblioteca Colombina in Seville. The Colón experts Mark McDonald, José María Pérez Fernández and Edward Wilson-Lee then confirmed the discovery.

The story illustrates three important features of historical research. Firstly, it works best when it involves collaboration. Non omnia possumus omnes, as the ancient saying has it: we can’t all do everything. Secondly, there is a large element of luck in what we collectively know. A discovery is often the result of a locked door being chanced upon by someone who happens to have the key. And thirdly, cataloguing is a crucial part of scholarly research. It is only because of a project to catalogue the collection that contained the Libro de los Epítomes that any of us ever knew it was there in the first place.