Page 230 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

230 from Italy to the Canary Islands

b) ENGLISH LANGUAGE SOURCES

The English language sources are very scarce and are reduced substan-
tially to two. John Parry, a professor at Harvard University, in his the dis-
covery of the sea (Italian translation: La conquista del mare da Colombo
a Magellano, published by La storia Bompiani), devotes just a few lines
(namely six lines on page 58 of the Italian translation) to our navigator,
claiming (without citing sources) that Lanzarotto would have been in the
service of the King of Portugal, who feoffed him with Gomera and Lan-
zarote because he had discovered them in 1336 (?), from which islands
however the son of Lanzarotto (a figure never mentioned in any source)
would have been expelled by the Guanches. Professor Parry says no more;
too bad, for it would have been interesting to know where he had gotten
this information in contrast to almost all other scholars.
No better luck from the second English text either, the book Before
Columbus: Exploration and colonization from the Mediterranean to the
Atlantic, 1229 – 1492, by Felipe Fernandez Arnesto, although it is quite a
substantial work. At the top of p. 155, Malocello is called Lancelot, Lan-
zarotto and even Lanzarote, and it is claimed that the discovery was “Por-
tuguese under the command of an Italian” and that it occurred around 1340
(which from other sources we know not to be so). Finally, on pp. 172-173,
the author mentions a letter dated 29 June 1370, in which the King of Por-
tugal assigns Gomera and Lanzarote to “Lansarote de Framqua”, a Portu-
guese admiral and vassal. According to this author, Lansarote de Framqua
died on the island in 1385.
However, according to the sources already examined, it is clear that
this is either a second man much younger than Lanzarotto or that the au-
thor has confused the Lansarote de Framqua of 1370 with our Lanzarotto
Malocello.
Apparently, the English language sources are not of much help to us
either.