Page 158 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

158 from Italy to the Canary Islands

ing, then every word is a fragment of the Whole and that is where the
interpretation must be sought.
Malus Augellus, the owl: the symbol of the coat of arms of the Malo-
cello family.
Are we to suppose that it began with the owl, or did a name exist before-
hand, an abstraction, a sound similar to malus augellus, and was it due to
this similarity that the night watcher was chosen? Whatever was really the
case, the owl scrutinizes from afar and its ability to penetrate the night (in
this case the horizons) is amazing. We can say that in a symbolical sense,
the decision was spot on because scrutinising the horizons (but undoubted-
ly also the inner horizon as well as the physical one) was Lanzarotto Malo-
cello’s job. If night is in itself fear, anxiety for the inability to possess that
calmness, that (mostly) peaceful state we carry with us in the daytime, then
in order to move easily and to conceive thoughts without slipping up, the
owl is the light, or rather the illuminations which will come to our rescue in
unfavourable, adverse situations. But if, as we know, destiny is written in
the name, then Malocello, internalising the symbol, easily scrutinised the
night-time beyond as well, which was made up of horizons and “horizon”.
He was an owl. What great protection he had for himself, being in the
name! He perhaps thought about it and if others in his family before him
had committed themselves to the sea (the previously mentioned case of Gi-
acomo Malocello, who was admiral of the Genoese fleet in the battle of the
Island of Giglio in 1241), then that beyond we have continued to underline
was a reason for living. Thus we feel that that distinction between horizons
and horizon is strong and credible.