4 - The Fortunate Isles

Summary

The Fortunate Isles or the Isles of the Blessed “abound in fruit and birds of every kind … These islands, however are greatly annoyed by the putrefying bodies of monsters, which are constantly thrown up by the sea.”

—The Natural History of Pliny (first century A.D.)

In 1291, The Crusaders lost Acre, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land, and, coincidentally, two Genoese brothers, Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi, sailed out past Gibraltar into the Atlantic with the intention of circling Africa. Not surprisingly, they were never seen again. Their voyage, in and of itself, had little significance, but its implications were of transcendent importance. The Vivaldi venture was the beginning of the most important new development for the human and many other species since the Neolithic Revolution. European sailors and imperialists were now ready to try their luck in the latitudes where the Atlantic was warm, if deplorably wide.

The Vivaldis may not have died at sea or on the coast of Africa. Even in their unseaworthy craft they could have reached the Canaries, Madeiras, or Azores, all within a week or two of Gibraltar, given favorable weather. The Canaries, certainly, and the other two groups, possibly, had been known to the Romans and other sailors of the ancient Mediterranean world, and named by them the Fortunate Isles. However, Europe forgot or at least misplaced them during the centuries of Rome's decline and the Middle Ages.