Tanto monta, monta tanto, Isabel como Fernando

Besides, and contrary to popular belief, Tanto monta was only the motto of King Ferdinand of Aragon, and never used by Isabella.

With this sword, the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella knighted Christopher Columbus on his return from his first voyage to America.

In the Throne Hall of the Royal Palace in Barcelona, Columbus was named "Admiral of the Ocean" and "Viceroy of the Indies".

Another version holds that the motto comes from the proverb Tanto monta cortar como desatar ("It amounts to the same, cutting as untying"), from the Classical story of the Gordian knot where Alexander the Great, wanting to untie the knot of a sacred yoke at Gordion to fulfill the prophecy of the conquest of Asia, decided to cut it with his sword.

Romantic painters represented it on the Spanish flags that Christopher Columbus brought to the New World, but there is no proof that he actually carried them.

" Tãto mõta " (" tanto monta ") as inscribed on the Moorish Alhambra Palace in Granada .
The motto TANTO MONTA is included in this 1889 oil painting by Emilio Sala Francés , illustrating [the role played by Torquemada (the Grand Inquisitor) in events leading up to] The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492
Arms of the Catholic Monarchs.