Ferdinand's parents never married, possibly because the Arana family lacked the social standing that was important to Columbus's ambitions.

Instruction was provided by notable humanists and theologians including Antonio de Nebrija and Peter Martyr d'Anghiera.

Anxious to lead a fourth voyage and redeem his reputation, he worked with Fernando and the Carthusian monk Gaspar Goricio to assemble a manuscript called the Book of Prophecies (Libro de las profecias).

[7][8] By 1502, Columbus won approval from the Crown for a fourth voyage with the goal of finding a western route to the Indian Ocean.

While exploring the Central American coast from Honduras to Panama, they were beset by storms, disease, mutiny, and battles with hostile natives.

Instead he focused his efforts on the legal battles to enforce the agreements with the crown that granted to Columbus and his descendants extensive rights and privileges in the New World.

Provisions were made in Ferdinand Columbus's will to ensure that the library would be maintained after his death, specifically that the collection would not be sold and that more books would be purchased.

[20][21] In 2019, a 500 year old catalog belonging to Ferdinand Columbus was discovered by Guy Lazure, Professor of History at the University of Windsor.

Columbus wrote a biography of his father in Spanish that was translated into Italian, Historie del S. D. Fernando Colombo; nelle quali s'ha particolare, & vera relatione della vita, & de fatti dell'Ammiraglio D. Cristoforo Colombo, suo padre: Et dello scoprimento ch'egli fece dell'Indie Occidentali, dette Mondo Nuovo (The life of the Admiral Christopher Columbus by his son Ferdinand).

[25] In the first paragraph of page 3 of Benjamin Keen's translation, Columbus dismissed the fanciful story that his father descended from the Colonus mentioned by Tacitus.

According to Note 1, on page 287, the two "were corsairs not related to each other or to Christopher Columbus, one being Guillame de Casenove, nicknamed Colombo, Admiral of France in the reign of Louis XI".

But he changed it in order to make it conform to the language of the country in which he came to reside and raise a new estate.The publication of Historie has been used by historians as providing indirect evidence about the Genoese origin of his father.

On page xv, Keen wrote, "In the depth of winter the aged Fornari set out for Venice, the publishing center of Italy, to supervise the translation and publication of the book".

On page xxiv, the 25 April 1571 dedication by Giuseppe Moleto states: Your Lordship [Fornari], then, being an honorable and generous gentleman, desiring to make immortal the memory of this great man, heedless of your Lordship's seventy years, of the season of the year, and of the length of the journey, came from Genoa to Venice with the aim of publishing the aforementioned book ... that the exploits of this eminent man, the true glory of Italy and especially of your Lordship's native city, might be made known.Fernando Colón died at Seville on 12 July 1539 and is buried in the Cathedral of Seville.