Page 68 - Lanzarotto Malocello from Italy to the Canary Islands

68 from Italy to the Canary Islands

and allows us “to have admired him”; it injects strength into us to be able
to write about him. The smells of a House are held in the walls and even
if that Palace has now become a “Museum” or municipal office, it makes
no difference, and it is possible to sense disputes from long ago, hopes and
then deceit and delusions.
The sea came first. The sea brought wealth and at the same time raised
the sense of adventure; but to reach one’s destination, the sea had to be
crossed and, to a certain extent, dominated. This hand-to-hand with the
sea was the real expression of adventure. Not only was each journey an
endeavour for man, but he was also constantly faced with death. In that
scenario, there was not just the enemy and his ambushes to fear, but also
the unforeseeable sequence of events that the immense sea had in store for
him. It was precisely in the sea that the forces of nature seemed to gather
in a spectacular synthesis: storms, gigantic waves, the various hierarchies
of the wind. On reaching their destination, another page on their existence
could be written, and this applied to all the crew, from the admiral down
to the ship’s boy.
Dante Alighieri worked on the Divine Comedy in around 1300. How-
ever, it seems to be an established fact that news of manuscript copies of
the Inferno were in circulation in around 1313, or rather around the date
on which Lanzarotto Malocello presumably set sail, when he arranged his
journey. This latter fact appears to support our dream (we repeat, when
there is a shortage of information, the sublime can come forth from any-
where). What we mean by this is that Lanzarotto Malocello may have had
th
news of the Inferno, or rather that he fell into the 26 canto in which the
Poet’s creation (his dream!) assigns to Ulysses the folle volo (mad flight)
beyond the Pillars of Hercules. But let us listen to Ulysses in the words of
Dante: (…)
ma misi me per l’alto mare aperto,
sol con un legno e con quella compagna
picciola da la qual non fui diserto.
L’un lito e l’altro vidi, infin la Spagna,
fin nel Marocco, e l’isola dei Sardi,
e l’altre che quel mare intorno bagna.
Io e i compagni eravam vecchi e tardi
quando venimmo a quella foce stretta
dov’Ercole segnò li suoi riguardi
a ciò che l’uom più oltre non si metta.