Page 216 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

216 from Italy to the Canary Islands

have tufts of erectile feathers above their eyes that make them appear more
frightening; this is why the real Malocello – Maloisel family crest would
have to be the eagle-owl.
Again with reference to French sources, let us briefly examine what
Gallois claims in his study “Cartographie et geographie médiévale. Une
carte colombienne”, published in the Annales de Géographie, 1925, Vol.
34, no. 189. On page 197, Gallois recalls that in 1320 Genoese cartogra-
pher Giovanni di Carignano made a little-known but valuable map of the
world that shows islets washed by the Ocean whose position and shape are
such that they can be identified as the Canary Islands, although they bear
no name.
This map turns out to be extremely important because it is nineteen
years older than the one made by Angelino Dulcert (who was the first to
write “island of Lanzarotto”, and adding a Genoese flag to boot).
Giovanni da Carignano, rector of St. Mark’s church on the Pier in
Genoa, was “a priest who would go frequently to the port of Genoa to
query sailors and foreigners on their trips; then, in the shade of St. Mark’s
bell tower, he would reproduce on a planisphere the geographical news he
had received” (Charles de La Roncière in Historie de la découverte de la
terre). Despite being a clergyman, da Carignano had contacts with areas
of the city frequented by sailors, as can be deduced from the archbishop’s
warning, who cautioned him not to keep rudders, sails, boat parts, and
other similar material in his church, in homes, and in the nearby cemetery.
According to Gallois, this could mean that Malocello may have talked
about his discoveries while in Genoa, seeing as how Giovanni da Carigna-
no was also from that city and lived there.
However, Lanzarotto must have spoken of his discovery only on occa-
sion and in a fragmentary manner, seeing as how da Carignano’s map does
not show the name of the islands.
This 1320 map drawn up by Giovanni da Carignano definitely bears
close examination, however, this is impossible due to a bureaucratic acci-
dent; apparently, this map was kept in the Uffizi Gallery of Florence, but
it was later moved to Naples for an exhibit along with other documents,
where it was destroyed beyond repair due to a fire that caught on in the
halls of the exhibit.
Incredibly, even anastatic copies of this document are unavailable,
which means that whatever could be seen on it is lost forever; however, we
may add that the right side of the map bore some (partly illegible) writing