Ugolino de Vivaldo

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Portuguese galley on the way to the Malabar Coast (India), according to Jan Huygen van Linschoten

Ugolino de Vivaldo (Italian: Ugolino Vivaldi ; † after 1291) was a Genoese explorer who, together with his brother Guido or Vadino de Vivaldo, was in command of the first known expedition in search of a sea ​​route from Europe to India .

Life

For the expedition, the de Vivaldo brothers equipped two galleys ( Allegranza and Sant'Antonio ) with the help of Tedisio Doria . In May 1291 they left the port of Genoa with 300 men with the aim of reaching India across the Atlantic and bringing home useful goods. The company was originally only set up for commercial purposes, but was obviously also intended to serve the Christian mission , because Ugolino was accompanied by two Franciscans . The well armed galleys sailed along the Moroccan coast to a place called Gozora ( Cape Nun ), at 28 ° 47 'N. Thereafter there were no further signs of life from the expedition.

In the early 14th century Ugolino's son Sorleone de Vivaldo († approx. 1315) made several long-distance trips in search of his father. He is said to have penetrated as far as the Somali coast to Mogadishu . In 1455, Antoniotto Usodimare - another Genoese navigator who traveled with Alvise Cadamosto in the service of the Portuguese Infante Henry the Navigator - reported that he had met the last descendants of survivors of the Vivaldo expedition near the mouth of the Gambia River . According to him, the two galleys had reached the Gulf of Guinea , where one of them stranded while the other sailed on and landed at a place on the coast of Ethiopia-Mena or Amenuan, near the Gihon (which probably meant the Senegal River is). The Genoese were arrested and imprisoned there.

Others

Several ships were named after him.

Remarks

  1. ↑ The assumption added by the Encyclopædia Britannica that Gihon was the West African Senegal, contradicts the other geographical indications that refer to East Africa. For some chroniclers, the river Gihon stands for the Nile (cf. Gihon (Gichon) . In: Meyers Konversations-Lexikon 1885-1892, 7th volume, page 343). In fact, the legend circulated that the last of the two galleys - like Sorleone de Vivaldo allegedly later - sailed around the southern tip of Africa and reached Ethiopia , where the Genoese were arrested by the equally legendary priest king Johannes (see G. Airaldi: Guerrieri e mercanti. Storie del Medioevo genovese . Aragno, Turin 2004).

literature

  • Vivaldo, Ugolino and Sorleone de . In: Encyclopædia Britannica . 11th edition. tape 28 : Vetch - Zymotic Diseases . London 1911, p. 152 (English, full text [ Wikisource ]).
  • Charles Raymond Beazley: Dawn of Modern Geography . Oxford 1906, iii., Pp. 413-419, 551
  • Wilhelm Heyd : Histoire du commerce du Levant . Improved French edition of the history of the Levant trade . Paris 1886, ii., Pp. 140-143
  • LT Belgrano: Annali Genovesi di Caffaro e de 'suoi continuatori . In: Archive. Sturgeon. Ital. 3rd row, ii., P. 124 ff and in: Atti della Soc. Lig. Di Storia Patria . 1881, xv., P. 320
  • Marcos Jimenez de la Espada (ed.): Conocimiento de todos los Reinos . In: Boletin of the Geographical Society of Madrid . Volume II., No. 2, pp. III, February 1877, pp. 113, 117-118
  • Jacopo Doria: Annales . (before 1291 AD) In: Georg Heinrich Pertz : Monumenta Germaniae Historica . Scriptores . 1863, xviii., P. 335
  • Georg Heinrich Pertz : The oldest attempt to discover the sea route to East India . Berlin 1859
  • Giovanni Antonio Canal : Degli antichi navigatori scopritori Genovesi . Genoa 1846
  • Jacob Gråberg : Annali di Geografia e di Statistica composti. da Giacomo Gråberg . Genoa 1802
personal data
SURNAME Vivaldo, Ugolino de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Vivaldi, Ugolino
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Genoese navigator
DATE OF BIRTH 13th Century
DATE OF DEATH after 1291