EG - Red Sea

The most widespread explanation is linked to the presence in its waters of Trichodesmium erythraeum, an alga that in some climatic conditions reproduces creating extensive red-brown spots on the surface of the water. It is thus painted in the plan of the Cantino Portuguese world map of the 16th century. The name already appears in the Greek Erythra Thalassa (Ερυθρὰ Θάλασσα), in Latin Mare Rubrum (alternatively Sinus Arabicus, literally “Arabian Gulf”). In Italian it is called this way already by Dante. In Inferno (XXIV, 90) he writes: “neither many pestilences nor yes guilty / already showed with all Ethiopia / nor with what above the Red Sea”. He also quotes it in Paradise (VI, 79): “Con costui corse infino al lito rubro.”