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 8 INTRODUCTION ITALIAN EXPLORATION The Italians of the thirteenth century undertook similar ex- plorations and temporarily occupied at least one of the Canary Islands, Lanzarote, which still bears, corrupted, the name of its Genoese invader, Lancelota Maloessel, of about 1470. On early fourteenth-century maps and some later ones the cross of Genoa is conspicuously marked on this island in commemoration of the exploit. It was probably at this period that Italian names were applied to most of the Azores and to other islands of the eastern groups. A few of these names still persist, for example, Porto Santo and Corvo; but others, after the rediscovery, gave way to Portuguese equivalents or substitutes. Thus Legname was translated into Madeira, and Li Conigi (Rabbit Island) became more prettily Flores (Island of Flowers). About 1285 the Geno- ese also sent out an expedition 9 "to seek the east by way of the west" under the brothers Vivaldi, who promptly vanished with all their men. Long afterward another expedition picked up on the African coast one who claimed to be a survivor; and it is probable that the Genoese expedition attempted to sail around Africa but came upon disaster before it was far on its way. The thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Italians undoubtedly added many islands to the maps or secured their places there; but we have no evidence that they passed westward beyond the middle of the Atlantic. BRETONS AND BASQUES The Bretons shared in the Irish monk voyages, their Saint Malo appearing in tradition sometimes as a companion of Saint Bren- dan, sometimes as an imitator or competitor. Also their fisher- men, with the Basques, from an early time had pushed out into remote regions of the sea. The Pizigani map of I367 10 (Fig. 2) represents a Breton voyage of adventure and disaster near one of M. d'Avezac: Notice des decouvertes faites au Moyen Age dans 1'Ocean At- lantique anterieurement aux grandes explorations portugaises du quinzieme siScle, Paris, 1845, p. 23. 10 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes europeennes et orientales .... Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, I.