Cliffs, atolls, shreds of land emerging from the sea, vast agglomerations, veritable continents: the history of islands and their discovery has energized travellers and fascinated scholars throughout the ages. Christopher Columbus claims to have encountered 1,400 of them, according to a letter from Pope Alexander VI, or even 1,700, according to a message sent to the Iberian royal family. Such numbers are far lower than those reported in the Indian Ocean by Marco Polo (as many as 12,700) or Guillaume Adam (20,000), a Dominican who lived between the 13th and 14th centuries. This book tells the adventurous and fantastic story of the search for islands during the Middle Ages, an account encompassing a variety of (often devastating) “discoveries” and “conquests”, as well as recurring disappointments – all linked to the utopian, unquenched desire to witness the transformation of the substance of dreams into reality.

Antonio Musarra teaches Medieval History at the Sapienza University in Rome.