A beautiful marble font can be admired in the baptismal chapel of the Barcelona cathedral. Legend has it that the six natives that Christopher Columbus brought with him after his first trip to America were baptized there. This is reported by a plaque on the wall of the aforementioned chapel. It is the only document that proves this fact, no other, and the imprecision of some data contained in the text of the plaque calls into question its veracity, at least as it is reported.
According to the plaque, the six Indians were baptized in the cathedral in April 1493 in the presence of King Ferdinand the Catholic. As the Església Arxidiocesana of Barcelona admits on its website, it is not possible that the baptism took place on that date, since the monarch was ill in the monastery of Sant Jeroni de la Murtra and recovering from the wounds suffered in an attack.
Furthermore, the baptism of the natives was the subject of a long debate about whether they were really people with souls. In the end, after two years, it was concluded at the University of Salamanca that yes, they should be considered citizens and, therefore, they could be baptized. Then, Queen Elizabeth II authorized the sacrament to be applied to them after two years of catechism. Therefore, if they were baptized it was at least four years after Columbus' return.
The aforementioned website of the ecclesiastical authority begins an article about these events with the phrase "history does not lie, men lie", calling into question the story on the plaque, but not the fact that the Indians were baptized at some point and They later returned to America as missionaries. In any case, history cannot rigorously prove this legend.
The baptismal font of the cathedral is made of Carrara marble and made by the sculptor Onofre Julià in 1433
