Page 44 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

44 from Italy to the Canary Islands

name of one of the champions of Arthur, a name which evokes the sides of ships
and alleys and which recalls many others, no less piratical, which we stumble
th
across already from the Annals of Caffaro, which, in the 12 century, stated the
identity of the members of the “Companies” giving rise to the Commune. This
“Genoese nature” expresses itself with a sort of generous squint, which looks
on one side to the Holy Land and to the Lebanese-Syrian sea shores, and on
the other to the Tyrrhenian islands, to North Africa, to the Spanish peninsula
th
and even to the “insuperable” Pillars of Hercules, which at the end of the 13
century were subjected to the profanation of the Vivaldi brothers.
Did Dante really draw his inspiration for his “folle volo” (mad flight) of
Ulysses from their ocean journey?
Lanzarotto Malocello’s fame as the discoverer – in around 1312 – of that
island, which took from him the name Lanzarote, is confirmed from as early
as 1339 on Angelino Dulcert’s navigational chart. It is hard to say whether
the “new” archipelago was already seen as a port of call for what would later
become, thanks especially to the Portuguese Infante Henry the Navigator – by
means of sailing around Africa, achieved at a later time – the “eastern route to
the Indies”.
With a doctrine which cannot not let the underlying passion show through,
Alfonso Licata does not limit himself to putting together the few sources and
the many but vague traces which can help us to reconstruct – if not an actual
complete biography of Lanzarotto, which would probably be impossible to
write – at the very least the events of the gradual focus of attention of the Geno-
ese on the ocean of the West and therefore of the Colombian buscar el Oriente
para el Occidente. While doing this research, Licata chanced by fate upon the
humanist interest for the islands – expressed by the works of Giovanni Boccac-
cio and Domenico Silvestri – which was an essential part of the commitment
that sparked the discovery of the New World and, with it, the founding of the
modern West. A discovery which, therefore, resulted in the founding of moder-
nity, but which has its roots in the deepest, yet still alive, ancient times: the era
of the myths of the time of the gods and of the Christian quest for paradise. As
Manuel Machado sings, only those who stay true to their dreams succeed in
breaking the chains of reality and conquering the impossible: “Como creyeron
solo en lo increíble, sucedió: que los límites del sueño trespasaron, y el sol, y
lo imposible”.
Mr Franco Cardini
Full Professor of Medieval History at the University of Florence
Chair of the Scientific Committee of the “Comitato Promotore per le celebrazio-
ni del Vii centenario della scoperta di lanzarote e delle isole Canarie da parte del
navigatore italiano Lanzarotto Malocello (1312-2012)”