Page 146 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

146 from Italy to the Canary Islands

ship, or even an entire fleet, suggests that he had a considerable amount of
money available, so we could believe that his family became rich through
the shipbuilding trade, perhaps with the “recommendation” of the more
powerful branches of the family (since Lanzarotto does not appear to have
belonged to one of them).
In any case, we too shall presume that the grandparents or parents of
Lanzarotto Malocello were ship fitters. With this comes another question:
were they traders who were used to sailing in the Mediterranean (or perhaps
beyond?), or were they simple fishermen who sailed not far off the coast
in the Gulf of Genoa?
We should lean more towards the first hypothesis, partly for what we
have recounted so far and partly because we share the case made by the
recent book Gli orizzonti aperti: profili del mercante Medievale [Open
horizons: profiles of merchants of the Middle Ages], editor Gabriella
Airaldi (Ed. Pavia, Turin 1997; see Chapters VI and VII in particular).
The case made in this book is rather innovative, even if daring; in short,
it is stated that starting from the end of the early Middle Ages, the Italian
merchants from the coastal regions of the peninsula pushed themselves
further and further and began to establish colonies in coastal Christian
Countries, in the Byzantine Empire and in Muslim countries. These
colonies (with the passing of the centuries) would become more numerous
as fully-fledged independent entities and as such would enjoy official
acknowledgement from the individual monarchs on whose territory these
entities were appropriated (Fondaco dei Genovesi, Quartiere dei Veneziani,
Comunità dei Pisani, etc.).
The theory of the authors is that the merchants of the era could be broken
down into two major categories: those who left to move definitively to
these overseas colonies, but who in any case maintained contact with the
motherland due to the continual business trade and – on the other hand –
those who left “without putting down roots”, i.e. returning home having
purchased goods to import, before embarking on a new journey.
The authors conclude that there must have been “extreme mobility” of
Italians from the Early Middle Ages on.
This is not the place to open a debate on the matter; however, we believe
that we can share (at least in broad terms) the theories of the authors, as our
sources, which we will focus on in the chapters to come, seem to support
this hypothesis.
Consequently, let us now move on by introducing other arguments.