Page 306 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

306 from Italy to the Canary Islands

lustrious. As it is, everything serves its purpose; maybe a word grabbed by
chance, the last figment of a legend, the mumbling of learned men, notaries,
travelers, princes, servants, scribes of the papal court and even sailors and
vagabonds, all is useful to the horizontal project gearing up for ascension:
peace on earth and light on high. Each of these characters has a precise
role and participates in the representation; that which is useful is grabbed
by a lurking individual, by a poet. Everything is good to clarify the point
on the horizon where the eye stops, and at the top, where the soul stops; in
heaven, reconnaissance is more arduous. From his nest, the warmth of his
books, and the anguish of an expatriate, Dante touched every point of the
Universe imaginable here, in the world of men, and the possibility of other
worlds. The gruelling centuries continued in their descent and other poets
came rummaging in the folds of humanity, in the scenario of the world,
trying to bring each depth to sight.
Petrarca, Boccaccio, and Tasso descended among us and they too, be-
sides the wonder for the dream of life, had the illusion of being able to give
a sense to the spectacle of the world.
The mind can set up a fleet with no effort. Imagination gets the better of
everything. Any organizational problem is thus overcome; as to the costs,
they are barely heard voices through the succession of one’s thoughts. In
the mind, a fleet is seen instantly; it is already set up and only needs to
set sail. This is the condition of the writer who, at the most, will have to
worry about acquiring notions to make the most of the scenery that he has
in mind. If, in addition, he will tell of what happened in centuries now
dissolved, in the same way he will be analytical with regard to the data
and places.
Therefore, he must know a lot about a topic to recreate that “right vin-
tage flavour”. The sea presents a condition that accentuates anxiety con-
siderably; on the contrary, a narrative set on terra firma is certainly simpler
and even continuous ambushes seem to be dealt with more calmly.
There are not many examples of writers who set sail on board of fleets
to define the unknown in the best possible way. Xenophon can justifiably
be considered a founder of war fiction and he saw everything, illustrating
movements not only of troops but also of thought with Anabasis: Cyrus’
troops against his brother Artaxerxes’.