Item of Indigenous Art from the Vatican to Be Researched in Cuba

HAVANA TIMES, Feb 9 — The official Historian of Havana, Eusebio Leal, announced yesterday that research will be conducted for the first time to reveal the “enigma” of a missal attributed to Christopher Columbus’s chaplain, reported the Prensa Latina news agency.

The item is here on the island on loan from the Ethnological Museum of the Vatican, and is still referred to as the first example of Christian-indigenous art in the Americas.

Leal said at a press conference that “reasonable doubt” exists among specialists from here on the island concerning the Cuban origin and the exact age of this “very remarkable piece of antiquity,” which will be exhibited in Havana for one year.