In search of the kingdom of Prester John
The origin of the legend of Prester John originates from a letter that the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos received in 1165. The sender was: “John, Christian Sovereign and Lord of Lords”.
The letter described the very rich lands of this monarch located in central Asia. The king said he lived in an immense palace made of gems and gold and said he governed a huge territory extending from Persia to China. For many years the myth of Prester John was associated with the dream of reaching a sumptuous kingdom, where all material pleasures were fulfilled and people lived in opulence.
This medieval El Dorado was searched for a long time but always without success. Marco Polo had described a great emperor who was a follower of the ancient Nestorian heresy, which had been condemned at the Council of Ephesus. According to this spiritual tendency, the two natures of Jesus, human and divine, are rigidly separated.
In reality there were two Christian kingdoms outside Europe. The first was the empire of the Nestorian Mongol Khan Yeliutashi, in the 12th century, described by Marco Polo in Milione. The other was the Ethiopian kingdom, whose mythical origins date back to the marriage between King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba.
The first maritime expedition in search of the fabulous kingdom of Prester Gianni left from Genoa in 1291.
The brothers Ugolino and Guido Vivaldi were in command of two galleys, which crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and then got lost in the immensity of the Atlantic Ocean. No one knew anything more about them even if later in the Book of Knowledge (anonymous Castilian friar, 1350-1385), there are some references to a lineage of Genoese who lived in the African kingdom of Abdeselib, whose capital was Graciona, adjacent and allied to that of Prester Gianni. Here is a passage from the anonymous Castilian writer:
They told me in this city of Graciona that the Genoese who saved themselves from the shipwreck of one of the two galleys daringly arrived here, even if it is not known what happened to the other galley.When we reached the city of Magdasor we met a Genoese, called Sor Leone, who was looking for his father, who had remained in one of the two galleys. The king of Graciona gave all honors to Sor Leone, but did not allow him to travel through the kingdom of Magdasor because the path was difficult and full of dangers.
Sor Leone was the son of Ugolino Vivaldi and had been part of the expedition. Is it possible that one of the two galleys continued the journey reaching the coasts of Mogadishu (Magdasor)?
In fact, the two Italian navigators Antoniotto Usodimare (Genoese) and Alvise Cadamosto (Venetian), who completed an exploration of the African Atlantic coasts in 1455, obtained some information about the Vivaldi expedition from some natives. Here is a passage by Antoniotto Usodimare, taken from the Genoese archives:
In the year 1285 two galleys set sail from Genoa commanded by the brothers Ugolino and Guido Vivaldi, with the aim of going east, towards the parts of the world known as the Indies. When these galleys entered the Guinea Sea, one of them was shipwrecked and could not continue. The other continued sailing and coasting until it reached Ethiopia near a city called Menam. The Genoese were captured and detained by these Christian inhabitants of Ethiopia, subjects of Prester John. The city is located by the Gion River. They were detained for a long time so that no one could return to their homeland. This was told by the Genoese nobleman Antoniotto Usodimare.
Note that the Gion River, mentioned in the Book of Genesis, is said to be the river that flows from the Garden of Eden. The Ethiopians identified the Gion River as the Blue Nile which originates near Lake Tana.
According to Father Agostino Giustiniani in the Annals of Genoa, the two Castilian friars who wrote the Book of Knowledge reunited with the Vivaldis, but this news cannot be confirmed.
From the 15th century onwards the importance of the Portuguese grew considerably.
The Lusitanians were beginning to dominate the African routes and were laying the foundations of what would be the most powerful maritime empire in the world in the following century.
Under the impetus of Prince Henry, known as the Navigator, the Portuguese managed to discover and colonize Madeira and the Azores. In 1434 they passed Cape Bojador, proving the groundlessness of superstitions about the unknown territories that extended further south.
In 1456 Antoniotto Usodimare and Alvise Cadamosto, who were traveling in the service of Portugal, were the first Europeans to reach the Cape Verde archipelago. From then on we began sailing along the coasts of Senegal and Gambia, up to the Gulf of Guinea.
With the fall of Constantinople, and the consequent impossibility of trading across the Mediterranean, African routes became increasingly important. The Portuguese returned with gold, ivory and slaves, jealously guarding the dominion of those routes.
The first Westerner to arrive at the southern tip of the African continent was Bartolomeu Dias, who left Lisbon in command of three ships in August 1487. The purpose of the journey was to investigate the real extent of the African continent and identify the shortest possible route for the Indies.
Another of the objectives of the undertaking was to search for the exact location of the legendary kingdom of Prester John. On board there were six recently captured black Africans. Well fed and clothed, they were used as translators, in order to help the Portuguese increase their trade.
In December 1487 the expedition arrived on today's Namibian coast. After about a month the Portuguese rounded the promontory which was later named the Cape of Good Hope and were then pushed offshore by a strong storm. They explored Algoa Bay and returned westward discovering Cape Agulhas, the southernmost place on the entire African continent.
The importance of this journey was enormous as for the first time the Portuguese had managed to verify the extent of the African continent, identifying the route that would then lead them to Asia. Ten years later, Vasco de Gama actually arrived in India, rounding the Cape of Good Hope and sailing north along the African coast.
Portugal's King Joao II also sent an overland expedition in search of Prester John's fabled domain.
The two explorers, who left Santarem on 7 May 1487, were Afonso da Paiva, who had to reach Ethiopia, and Pero da Covilha, headed for India.
The Portuguese crossed the Mediterranean and continued to Aden, where they separated. Afonso da Paiva never returned to his homeland. However, da Covilla was one of the first Europeans to visit India, where he acquired important information for future enterprises and then managed to return to Portugal.
The legendary kingdom of Prester John was never found precisely because it was only real during the late 12th century. Its location remains a mystery although the only two Christian kingdoms outside of Europe (Central Asia and Ethiopia) can give an idea of what its mysterious location was.
Article by Yuri Leveratto
