Page 344 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

344 from Italy to the Canary Islands

expedition stopped in Majorca, Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Almeria,
Cadiz, and several places in North Africa.
The prediction of the end of Christian rule over Asia that had coincid-
ed with the Fall of Acre had confronted the Maritime Republics with the
harsh matter of survival, especially Genoa, which was all the more sensi-
tive to the issue because rooted more deeply in every known land; natu-
rally, Genoa was the first to consider opening new routes to the portentous
Orient.
The Vivaldi expedition was the expression of an inevitable necessity.
Although planned primarily for business, it also promoted Christian pros-
elytizing. Two Franciscan friars were part of the expedition who had the
task of evangelizing the pagan peoples with whom they would come in
contact.
Colonial intentions were no strangers to this mission, aimed at extend-
ing Genoese sovereignty over territories and peoples beyond its borders,
with the purpose of facilitating its economic dominion over their resourc-
es, work, and trade.
This also tended to consolidate the set of beliefs used to legitimize or
promote this system, in particular, the belief that the ethical and cultural
values of the colonizers were superior to those of the colonized.
The galleys were well equipped and, after passing the Strait of Gibraltar
and beginning their descent along the African coasts, sailed down along
the coast of Morocco, to a place called Gozora, after which nothing more
was heard of them. All traces of the expedition were lost after Cape Juby,
a tiny strip of land squeezed between the sea and the desert of Western Sa-
hara on the southern borders of Morocco, and no one from the expedition
ever returned.
Thus ended the oldest transoceanic exploration attempt by Europeans
in the Middle Ages.

The memory of this bold adventure, symbol of the audacity of man in
the face of the possibilities of that time, was kept alive for a long time.
The Genoese writer Agostino Giustiniani mentions it two centuries lat-
er in his work Castigatissimi Annali, which other local historians would
later refer to. It was however just a vague memory that actually doubted
such a trip ever took place.
It was not until the mid-19 century that a document provided conclu-
th
sive evidence on the matter, a passage from the “Annali genovesi di Caffa-