Antonio de Noli (born 1415 or possibly 1419[1][2]) was a 15th-century Genoese nobleman and navigator,[3] and the first governor of the earliest European overseas colony in Subsaharan Africa.
Modern historians and researches also specify Antonio Noli as Genovese or Genoese, e.g. Dumoriez (1762),[12] Thomas (1860),[13] Hamilton (1975),[14] Diffie and Winius (1977),[15] Irwin and Wilson (1999).
One branch was established in Genoa, Liguria, and the other in Novara, Piedmont, where the Noli ("famiglia di signore") inhabited the Castle of Cameriano by the beginning of the 15th century.
[20][21] It is also recorded that members of the Noli family established in Genoa participated in government already by the 13th century, i.e. as "Consigliere della Signoria" in 1261.
[26][27][28] Old history records attribute to Antonio de Noli the discovery of Cape Verde Islands, supposedly "the ancient Hesperides of Pliny and Ptolemy".
[34] During the occupation of Cape Verde Islands by Castile (a main base of modern Spain) during the Portuguese-Castilian war of 1475–1479, the Italian Antonio de Noli remained governor in spite of his titles had been given to him by the Portuguese.
Thereafter, no records of the whereabouts on Antonio Noli – including his demise or location of his son and descendants, or his fortune (as well as in the case of his Genoa brother Bartholomew or nephew Raphael) – have been found in Portugal, Cape Verde, or Spain.
[43] However, a few years later, descendants of an Antonio de Noli appeared again, living in Northern Genoa (Valleregia, Serra Ricco).
It sank after striking a mine off the coast of Corsica on 9 September 1943, the day after the Italian surrender to the Allies (see Navigatori class destroyer).