Page 18 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

18 from Italy to the Canary Islands

t is not only because of my institutional commitment as Represent-
ative of the General Directorate for libraries, cultural institutions
and copyright - the main missions of which include promoting
books and reading, as well as enhancing our historical and cultural tradi-
tions and developing our knowledge of the events and lives of men who
have contributed significantly to the identity, economic, intellectual, social
and political development of our country - that I must contribute to the
preface of this work. It is also because I wish to show my sincere appre-
ciation for the ideals of this excellent publishing project which has done
a laudable job in providing the reader with a work that brings together
the ability to speak to a broad audience, scientific rigour and pathos and
prolifically propagates the benevolent curiosity for the discovery of one of
the protagonists of the history of exploration, as well as a messenger of the
new frontiers of a world yet unknown and provider of boundless horizons
beyond the mythical, mysterious, hostile and insurmountable Pillars of
Hercules, which were destined to crumble under the thrashing blow dealt
by geographical discoveries.
It is a piece of historiographic research dedicated to travel, to the sus-
pense of discovering what lurks beyond what classical literature marks as
the limit of the known world, and thus delimiting the “limit of knowledge”,
the Pillars of Hercules, that non plus ultra, the point where you can go no
further, chosen by Hercules to deal with one of the struggles of his exist-
ence. An eagerness to learn, an attempt to challenge Infinity which opens
the doors to the discovery of transoceanic territories and which, like all
curiosities, opens up the way ahead for individual and collective human
intellectual progress.
It is a work which, in the dynamic perspective made explicit in the title
Lanzarotto Malocello, from Italy to the Canary Islands, confirms the good-
ness of the protagonist’s role as explorer, and not merely as conqueror.
The publication provides a highly detailed biographical excursus on the
sailor’s family, documenting and presenting the Italian and foreign histo-
riographical sources on the subject area of the research, as an introduction
to the modern history of the Canary Islands as regards the phenomena
of civilisation, evangelisation, migration and integration up to the present
day, as well as an in-depth study of the economic and cultural hinterland of
th
th
the 13 and 14 century Genoa. A city at the peak of its knowledge of the
difficult art of navigation, aided by the use of the compass and by the as-
trolabe and supported by all the most advanced seafaring, cartographical,