VATICAN: A 525-year-old copy of a letter by Christopher Columbus that was stolen from the Vatican was returned on Thursday after joint sleuthing by US Homeland Security agents and Holy See antiquity experts.

It’s the third such return in recent years after US investigators determined that several authentic copies of the letter had been stolen from libraries across Europe and replaced with forgeries without library officials’ knowledge.

US Ambassador Callista Gingrich presented the letter on Thursday to the chief Vatican archivist, Archbishop Jean-Louis Brugues, and the prefect of the library, Bishop Cesare Pasini.

The authentic letter had ended up in the possession of an Atlanta actuary who purchased it from a rare book dealer in New York in 2004, unaware it had been taken from the Vatican. His widow returned it.

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2018