João Zorro was a Portuguese troubadour who lived in the later thirteenth century. He is noted for his poems about ancient sailors, written on the eve of the great voyages of discovery. Zorro is unusual among medieval poets for writing about calm and domesticated seas, rather than about wild and deadly oceans. In his poems, sailors only lament about missing their home countries, lovers etc. His work sheds light on the attitudes towards the sea of the early European explorers.
