Galvano Fiamma

Galvano Fiamma (; 1283–1344) was an Italian Dominican and chronicler of Milan. He appears to have been the first European in the Mediterranean area to describe the New World. His numerous historical writings include the Chronica Galvagnana, the Chronicon extravagans de antiquitatibus Mediolani, the Chronicon maius, and the Manipolus florum seu Historia Mediolanensis; he is also known for a map of Milan c. 1330.

Biography Fiamma was born in 1283 to a family of notaries in Milan. At a young age, he joined the Dominican monastery of Saint Eustorgio, where he studied and eventually became a lector sacrae theologiae.

After a brief period in Pavia, where he taught theology between 1308 and 1313, he returned to Milan, where he lectured on various subjects, including ethics, rhetoric and economics. Fiamma was appointed chaplain to the Archbishop of Milan Giovanni Visconti in 1339. He died in Milan in 1344.

Writings

He wrote several chronicles dealing with the history of Milan and exalting the Visconti, who by his day had in effect become its ruling dynasty.

His book, Cronica universalis, written sometime between 1339 and 1345, includes a passage in which he describes Iceland, Greenland, and Markland:

Also in the , Galvano claims the Vivaldi Brothers reached Ethiopia.