Page 2 - Masseti _ Zava_2002

1846, 1947; Sanvisente, 1849; Avogadro di Vigliano, 1880; Sommier 1908;
Riggio, 197 6; F ragapane, 199 3), the originalluxuriant Mediterranean woodland
was burnt out over a few years in the nineteenth century for the production of
charcoal to be exported to the mainland and to other islands, including Sicily,
Malta and Pantelleria. This coincided with the definitive human colonisation
brought about by the King ofNaples, between 1840 and 1850. The present
vegetation shows only relics of a degraded maquis. Rare botanica! species are
Centaurea acaulis L., and Caralluma europaea (Gussone, 1832).
An examination of medieval documents written prior to the fifteenth century
yield no information concerning the presence of wild ungulates o n Lampedusa.
For example, in his geographical treatise "The Book ofRoger", written for Roger
II, the first Norman king of Sicily, the Arab scholar Edrisi (c. 1100-64 A.D.)
referred to Lampedusa as a small island "completely bare of fruit trees and
animals" (cf. Amari and Schapparelli, 1883; Rizzitano, 1994). And, despite the
great ab un dance of lanci tortoises, rabbits an d migratmy birds, in the course of
the fifteenth century wild ungulates were stili not reported on the island as is
clear from the Relazione sopra l'isola di Lampedusa drawn up in 1436 for Giovanni
de Charo, Baron of Montechiaro, when he purchased Lampedusa from King
Alfonso V of Aragon (cf. Fragapane, 1993). Shordy afterwards, however, in his
epic poem Orlando Furioso, Ludovico Ariosto (1474-1533) chose the tiny,
remote island ofLipadusa as the theatre for the bloody, final battle between the
Christians and the Moors. He described the island as follows:

"D'abitazioni è l'isoletta vota
Piena d'umil mortelle e di ginepri,
Gioconda solitudine e remota
A cervi, a daini, a capriuoli, e lepri;
E fuor che ai pescatori è poco nota
Ove sovente a rimandati vepri
Sospendon, per seccar, l'umide reti;
Dormono intanto i pesci in mar quieti"
(Orlando Furioso, canto XL, stanza 45) 1

Different scholars commenting on Ariosto's work have identified this island as
Lampedusa. Ariosto described it as a remote sea-bound world in the middle of
nowhere, cloaked in a dense Mediterranean vegetation (''Piena d'umil mortelle e
di ginepri" = With humble myrtle and juniper clad), completely void of human
life. In some ways, the irnage of Lampedusa evoked by Ariosto recalls Homer' s
island of the goats "perpetually empty of men" (The Odissey, IX, 39-132), where
Ulysses and his companions landed to hunt before the Polyphemus episode. But,
instead of the homeland ofbleating wild goats, Ariosto described Lampedusa like

200