Page 20 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

20 from Italy to the Canary Islands

astronomical and mathematical knowledge of the time, which enabled the
start-up and management of a trade policy founded on the supremacy of
the seas, fearless taking on of storms, the mysteries of the oceans, equato-
rial heat and sea monsters and, lastly, on the quest for other routes which
would be profitable enough to replace the rich but transient Asian markets
on which Europe used to draw. By this time, Muslims had once again taken
over the Holy Land, becoming the indestructible masters of the seaports
which were the dockings of the large communication routes with China,
India and the Arabian Peninsula, from where came spices and precious
metals, gems, pearls and silk; that particular situation in history required a
search for alternatives to continue controlling the exportation of goods to
sell on European markets.
The longstanding trade carried out in the East had convinced the Ge-
noese that to the south of the African continent, the waters of the Atlantic
and Indian oceans met and offered the possibility of sailing around Africa,
despite the fact that brothers Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi, who set sail
from the port of Genoa in 1291 for the Indies, did not perform victorious
feats and instead there was a fatal loss of news on their part and on their
venture of no return.
At times the unfamiliarity of the oceans is like playing with death, but,
to borrow the words of Pompeius, navigare est necesse (sailing is nec-
essary). Pompeius completed this motto with the statement vivere non
necesse (living is not necessary), thus trying to encourage sailors, fright-
ened by storms, to take on the sea in order to transport a load of African
corn to Rome, because in comparison with the needs of the Eternal City,
the same need to save one’s own life came second. What is more, navigare
necesse est became the motto of the Hanseatic League and, more recently,
of other seafaring organisations; it was even chosen as the symbol of bel-
licose and nationalist Arditism by Gabriele d’Annunzio.
The life and epic venture of Lanzarotto Malocello, the fearless Ligurian
captain, is also represented by this emblem. After the attempt of the brave
and unlucky Vivaldi brothers and at the end of the epic Ligurian trade
era in the Near East, Malocello landed on the Canary Islands in 1312. He
baptised the northernmost one with the name Lanzarote, or rather insula
de Lanzarotus Marocellus, and sanctioned, in favour of the Genoese, the
ius of initial discovery of the territory which is now one of the favourite
destinations of international tourism, full of interesting aspects that are
closely linked to Italy but which are also bursting with tropical, exotic and