Page 60 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

60 from Italy to the Canary Islands

The lack of a rich biography is therefore the fact of the matter with
regard to Lanzarotto Malocello; no marble busts and charcoal sketches
come to our rescue, and neither is there any “artists’ evidence” similar to
Leonardo’s countless scientific sheets.
Of course, we can note that not just a small number of accounts of
many ancient peoples are fictionalised and it is precisely by starting with
the small amount of established information that secondary stories have
been developed. We feel a little lost before so much courage, as that is
not how things really went. Let us keep fictionalised events far away from
established events, remembering always that both of these give us the gift
of the sublime, what is important is that the two tracks remain separate; in
any case, the two different accounts give us the chance to dream, to reach
those places, or rather to diminish the oppression of time.
The historical novel is fortunate when an important character asserts
himself, steals the scene, makes his name - already mentioned in books or
inscribed in marble - even more famous. How many novels have been con-
ceived by starting, for example, with the name of an emperor? We would
have a job to name them all, but it is a fact, for example, that figures such
as Caesar, Caligula, Nero and Julian the Apostate have stirred the imagina-
tion of many writers. And something similar can happen when the charac-
ter is, so to say, obscure, and his existential course is recounted by placing
him in “exact atmospheres” and, above all, with the true style of that time.
The writer Marguerite Yourcenar provided us with “The Memoirs of
Hadrian”, of course basing herself on texts and on accurate facts regarding
the emperor’s existence, but it is a novel, and those dialogues, so skilfully
created, are the art and emotional product of the great writer.
This therefore shows us the importance of having at least a trace of the
subject to be recounted. A trace which, in the case of the emperor Hadrian,
could be a Parian marble bust, coins, extremely rare citations and the works
of ancient historians. For a moment, imagining the faintness of the trace,
we could even think of a carnelian engraved with the profile of the emper-
or; but the Romans usually used these small gems, which were mainly set
in rings, to represent their gods and the auspices, such as Fortune, Pros-
perity and also Love. And yet, had it been possible to find a carnelian with
the face of Hadrian, and with no other material - other documentation, for
example certain busts and some accounts - that could be taken into consid-
eration apart from that scratch on the carnelian, which was just about true
to the emperor’s profile, Marguerite Yourcenar, for whom the life of the