A Genoese inn-keeper’s son, this magnetic and obsessional maverick had for years been soliciting their backing for a voyage across the Atlantic to reach India and China. If one of his dreams was this passage westwards to the Indies, the other was the liberation of Jerusalem from the east: from the start he linked the two. ‘I protested to Your Highnesses that everything gained as a result of this voyage would he spent in the conquest of Jerusalem and Your Highnesses laughed and said the idea pleased them.’
