Page 206 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

206 from Italy to the Canary Islands

also point out the text by Paolo Giudici, Storia dei viaggiatori, dei navig-
atori degli esploratori [History of travellers, navigators, explorers], pub-
lished by Nerbini, Florence 1936, which on pages 71-72 also mentions
Lanzarotto but only to report already known data.
We would like to conclude this chapter on Italian sources regarding
Lanzarotto Malocello with the interesting paper of the lecture “Debates on
Lanzarotto Malocello” given by Professor Geo Pistarino at the “Congreso
Internacional de Historia des Descobrimentos” [International Conference
th
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on the History of Discoveries], held in Lisbon from 5 to 11 September
1960; this paper sets forth the theses of the various scholars who have writ-
ten about Malocello’s arrival in Lanzarote.
Pistarino first recalls the thesis of Charles de la Roncière on the discov-
ery made by Malocello in 1312 and his stay on the island for about twenty
years, and then reports the thesis of Jacinto J. Nascimento Moura, who
(while confirming Malocello’s Genoese nationality) argues that the year of
the discovery was not 1312 but 1317, because Lanzarotto allegedly was a
sailor in the service of King Dinis of Portugal.
Then comes the thesis of Silvia Sergio Pinto, according to whom Lan-
zarotto would have discovered the island in 1324, again under the orders
of King Dinis, followed right after by the thesis of Portuguese historian
Fortunato de Almeida, who (in his História de Portugal [History of Portu-
gal], Vol. III, Coimbra 1925) exhibits some documents found in a private
archive and now lost, according to which in 1370 a Lanzarote de Framqua
died in Lanzarote after discovering the island on behalf of the King of
Portugal.
From this thesis developed the study by Charles Verlinden, who claims
that the island was discovered in 1365-67 and that Lanzarotto would have
lived there until 1385 (with only one interruption in 1376, to be recognized
as a vassal of the Kingdom of Portugal).
Professor Pistarino concludes by reporting the thesis of Elias Serra Ra-
fols, who denies these last two theses, stating that Fortunato de Almeida
and Verlinden based themselves on coarse fakes from a few centuries ear-
lier; for example, the natives of Lanzarote are referred to as “gaanches”, a
term similar to the original “guanches”, which however was recognized in
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Europe only in the 15 century to indicate the inhabitants of Tenerife and
then extended to all the inhabitants of the Canary Islands only in the 19
th
century. Therefore, the only certain date is the one prior to 1330.
Incidenter tantum, Pietro Barozzi’s thesis (found in the aforementioned