Page 52 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

52 from Italy to the Canary Islands

resentation of space in the Middle Ages, from the mid-1200s and, for cer-
th
tain aspects, already from the mid-12 century, “toute fin ethique et social
tend à se subordonner a celle des techniques et de la gestion”, for which “le
pratiques traditionnels, aux methodes intuitive set peu rentables, reculent
2
devant un savoir positif et dominateur” .
A savoir positif et dominateur with which those twenty citizens, sabe-
dores de mar able to command vessels, galleys and sailing ships and to
plot and establish routes, which Emanuele Pessagno undertook to make
available to King Dinis of Portugal with the agreement of 1 February
st
1317, with which this Genoese merchant, who had by then been sailing
continually between Genoa and England for more than ten years, succeed-
ed in obtaining the title of “admiral”, transferable also to his successors,
as well as a large series of commercial and fiscal benefits and privileges,
which could also be transferred to his successors. A savoir positif et dom-
inateur that in such a context made it possible for Lanzarotto Malocello
first, then Niccoloso da Recco and Angelino di Tegghia dei Corbizzi after
him, to re-discover the Canary Islands.
To achieve these first concrete results, which opened up almost the en-
tire globe to the European expansionist initiative, these sailors would have
to perfect and exploit precisely that knowledge, stimulated and produced
by the new and ever more pressing economic drive, which had been de-
fined and perfected in the practice of navigation in the Mediterranean car-
ried out in the previous decades, until they were able to gradually become
acquainted with and dominate a new space, i.e. that vast portion of the
Atlantic located south and west of the Spanish peninsula, which has as its
boundaries the archipelagos of the Canary Islands and Azzorre, in which
the archipelago of Madera can be found and where a constant southerly
wind blows: a stretch of water, the gradual acquaintance with which would
finally provide the key for navigation towards new worlds. It was in fact
by learning to go from Spain to the Canary Islands, but especially return-
ing, battling against a constantly adverse current, that the sailors gradually
fine-tuned and perhaps also invented several components and skills which
would later allow them to set sail for America, for the East Indies and
around the world.
In this way the Atlantic universe, once a place where Medieval fantasy

2 P. ZUMTHOR, La mesure du monde. Répresentation de l’espace au moyen age,
Parigi, 1993, pp. 33-34 (il corsivo è nostro).