A saying defines Italians as "a people of saints, poets, and navigators." Indeed, for many centuries, the Italian Peninsula has regarded the sea, and especially the Mediterranean, as its own backyard. It's no coincidence that the Romans referred to it as Mare Nostrum, meaning "our sea," and maritime cities like Venice and Genoa used its routes as a springboard to build commercial fortunes that lasted hundreds of years. Today, Italy has – unfortunately – lost much of its maritime vocation, chasing the chimeras and sirens of an imaginary Central Europe to which we only marginally belong.
Marco Valle 's book " Andavamo per mare" (Neri Pozza, 2025, pp. 336, also e-book) tries to rediscover, to reconnect that long blue thread that unravels from the medieval galleys and caravels of Christopher Columbus to bring it up to the present day , to the rediscovery of that destiny of the sea that is part of us.
Valle reminds us, in fact, how much Italy and the world owe to the resourcefulness of our local sailors.
Since the dawn of the first millennium, Italians have traversed the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, shaping the fortunes of Amalfi, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, but also Ragusa, Savona, Gaeta, Trani, Noli, and Ancona . A concerted effort that spans the centuries, projecting itself beyond the Pillars of Hercules, toward the impossible, the unattainable. On fragile shells, a handful of courageous fools sailed toward the equator or the eternal ice. In 1431, the Venetian Pietro Querini was shipwrecked north of Norway and, saved by locals who began to venerate him as a god, tasted the cod, which he brought back to the lagoon, where it became a typical Venetian dish. In the 13th century, the Genoese admiral Benedetto Zaccaria alternated service to his country with pirate raids on behalf of Byzantium and France. And then the most famous: Verrazzano, Vespucci, Pigafetta, the Cabotos... Christopher Columbus stands out above all: after him, the Far West will have no more mysteries.
In short, a book of extraordinary and extremely risky adventures, at the mercy of solitude, sun, cold, thirst, and hunger. Stories of seafarers, but also of brilliant astronomers, fearless literary figures, and restless globetrotters. Distant stories, but also recent ones, which a distracted and very earthbound Italy has often forgotten.
We then asked Marco Valle where the impetus to recover these ancient yet contemporary stories came from:
This work was born a long time ago. I come from a family of seafarers; as true Istrians, my elders have always 'beaten the waves,' and much of my childhood was spent on my father's ships listening to tales of distant lands and seas, then atlases and globes, the books of Verne, Salgari, Vittorio G. Rossi, documentaries by Folco Quilici and Jacques Cousteau. A treasure trove of stories, images, and dreams that over the years, thanks to my work as a journalist, I have continued to enrich and deepen. Hence, last year, the book Viaggiatori straordinari. Storie, avventure e follie degli esploratori italiani (Extraordinary Travelers: Stories, Adventures, and Follies of Italian Explorers) and now, again with Neri Pozza, Andavano per mare (They Went to Sea). A long quest for adventure and discovery.
Who are the protagonists of your book?
They chose me. Rereading the history of Italy with a nautical (and very curious) eye, from the early Middle Ages to the present day, I encountered a large group of characters—intrepid sailors but also brilliant scientists, fearless literary figures, restless globetrotters, war heroes, and magnificent athletes, in short, a club of wonderful madmen—who over time have crossed every sea, accomplishing feats as remarkable as they are now forgotten and repressed. An unjust and unjustified oblivion. That's why I've tried to recount some of these complicated, sometimes extreme, but always luminous lives. The reader, then, will be the judge.
What did the sea represent for Italians in the past?
Thanks to the sea, from the Middle Ages to the 17th century, Italy, though politically fragmented, became an economic superpower. Then, after the glittering era of the maritime republics ended, due to a series of historical factors I have tried to explain, we shrank and became entrenched, reduced, until the late 19th century, to a picturesque and marginal wasteland. A narrow-minded and short-sighted vision that unfortunately still plagues us today. Few know that the maritime economy generates an added value of €76.6 billion for Made in Italy, employing over a million people, and that Sardinia is, after Liguria, the region that derives the greatest benefits from the sea in terms of employment and investment.
Which of the characters described are you particularly attached to?
"A difficult question. Each of them tells a fascinating story. Few returned, very few died in their beds. I think of Vivaldi, who, inspiring Dante, got lost in the Atlantic, or Verrazzano, who reached New York and was devoured by cannibals in the Caribbean, and then Pigafetta from Vicenza, who—a man of letters and ignorant of maritime matters—recounts the first, incredible circumnavigation of the globe. And then there's Agostino Straulino, the true 'father' of Italian sailing. I could go on, but the list is too long. Read the book..."
Which of the characters you've described was a discovery for you?
Certainly Pietro Querini, the Venetian who in 1431 was swept away by a storm in the vastness of the North Atlantic and found himself, against his will, stranded in the Lofoten Islands, Norway's northernmost archipelago. Rescued by the locals, he tasted the cod, which he brought back, after incredible ordeals, to the lagoon, where it became a Venetian and Italian delicacy. Even today, the Lofoten islanders, as Chef Barbieri confirmed in an edition of his culinary format, remember and honor him. A beautiful story of sea and cuisine...