Page 430 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

430 from Italy to the Canary Islands

he Atlantic archipelago of the Canary Islands, known to the an-
cient Romans, Phoenicians, and Carthaginians, of which scholars
such as Ptolemy and Pliny had spoken vaguely, had become only
an imaginary entity for men of the Middle Ages.
In those times, the ocean waves were marked by the insuperable limit of
the Pillars of Hercules, which St. Augustine warned never to desecrate,
thus fuelling man’s fear of the unknown.
But thanks to the courage and initiative of Lanzarotto, an Italian navigator
whose name also evokes myths and legends, navigation across the borders
between Earth and the Divine became reality, leading to the rediscovery of
the “Fortunate Isles” told by the ancients, which, completely forgotten by
mankind, had disappeared from the earthly scene.
Without doubt, the feat accomplished by Lanzarotto Malocello was the
biggest advance in the field of geographical knowledge of that time, later
followed by other explorations that have gradually enriched human wis-
dom and fostered the birth of the modern world.

Dr. Sabrina Di Sepio
Magistrate in Rome