fl. 1200s

Italian merchants who made the first European attempt to reach Asia by sailing westward. In 1281 or 1291, more than two centuries before the historic first voyage of Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), the Genoese Vivaldi brothers set sail for the Indies in two ships. The crafts left Genoa, passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and landed briefly on the Moroccan coast before sailing westward, never to be heard from again. In later years the Vivaldi brothers became the subjects of legends that depicted them as having circumnavigated Africa before being captured by the mythical Christian king Prester John.