Antillia

Last updated
Antillia
Portolan chart location
Albino de Canepa 1489 Antillia Roillo.jpg
Map of Albino de Canepa, dated 1489. Phantom island of Antillia, with its Seven Cities, on top; the smaller companion island of Roillo is below it
In-universe information
Type Phantom island

Antillia (or Antilia) is a phantom island that was reputed, during the 15th-century age of exploration, to lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities (Ilha das Sete Cidades in Portuguese, Isla de las Siete Ciudades in Spanish).

Contents

It originates from an old Iberian legend, set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania c.714. Seeking to flee from the Muslim conquerors, seven Christian Visigothic bishops embarked with their flocks on ships and set sail westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually landing on an island (Antilha) where they founded seven settlements.

The island makes its first explicit appearance as a large rectangular island in the 1424 portolan chart of Zuane Pizzigano. Thereafter, it routinely appeared in most nautical charts of the 15th century. After 1492, when the north Atlantic Ocean began to be routinely sailed and became more accurately mapped, depictions of Antillia gradually disappeared. It nonetheless lent its name to the Spanish Antilles.

The routine appearance of such a large "Antillia" in 15th-century nautical charts has led to speculation that it might represent the American landmass, [1] and has fueled many theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact.

Legend

A full image of Canepa's 1489 map, featuring Antillia (on the west) in relation to the Iberian Peninsula. Portolan chart by Albino de Canepa 1489.jpg
A full image of Canepa's 1489 map, featuring Antillia (on the west) in relation to the Iberian Peninsula.

Stories of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, legendary and otherwise, have been reported since classical antiquity. [2] Utopian tales of the Fortunate Islands (or Isles of the Blest) were sung by poets like Homer and Horace. Plato articulated the utopian legend of Atlantis. Ancient writers like Plutarch, Strabo, and, more explicitly, Pliny the Elder and Ptolemy, testified to the existence of the Canary Islands. The names of some real islands re-emerged as distinct mythical islands with associated legends, e.g. capraria (the island of goats) and canaria (the island of dogs) are often found on maps separately from the Canary Islands (e.g. Pizzigani brothers, 1367).

The Middle Ages saw the emergence of Christian versions of these tales. Notable among these are the Irish immrama (tales of a hero's journey to the Otherworld), such as the immram of Uí Corra, or the sea voyages of the 6th-century Irish missionaries Saint Brendan and Saint Malo. These are the source for several legendary Atlantic islands such as Saint Brendan's Island and the Island of Ima. [3] The sagas of Norse seafarers to Greenland and Vinland, notably the Grœnlendinga saga and the saga of Erik the Red, have also been influential. Norse encounters with North American indigenous peoples seem to have filtered into Irish immrama. [4]

The peoples of the Iberian peninsula, who were closest to the real Atlantic islands of the Canaries, Madeira and Azores, and whose seafarers and fishermen may have seen and even visited them, [5] articulated their own tales. Medieval Andalusian Arabs related stories of Atlantic island encounters in the legend (told by al-Masudi) of the 9th-century navigator Khashkhash of Cordoba [6] and the 12th-century story (told by al-Idrisi) of the eight Maghrurin (Wanderers) of Lisbon. [7]

Given the tendency of the legends of different seafarers – Greek, Norse, Irish, Arab and Iberian – to cross-fertilize and influence each other, [8] the exact source of some legendary Atlantic islands – such as the mythical islands of Brasil [9] and the Isle of Mam [10] – are extremely difficult to disentangle.

It is from Christian Iberia that the legend of Antillia emerged. According to the legend, in c. 714, during the Muslim conquest of Hispania, seven Christian bishops of Visigothic Hispania, led by the Bishop of Porto, embarked with their parishioners on ships and set sail westward into the Atlantic Ocean to escape the Arab conquerors. They stumbled upon an island and decided to settle there, burning their ships to permanently sever their link [11] to their now Muslim-dominated former homeland. The bishops erected seven settlements (the "Seven Cities") on the island. In one reading (from Grazioso Benincasa), the seven cities are named Aira, Antuab, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con. [12]

The legend, in this form, is told in various places. The principal source is an inscription on Martin Behaim's 1492 Nuremberg globe which reads (in English translation):

In the year 734 after the birth of Christ, when all Spain was overrun by the miscreants of Africa, this Island of Antillia, called also the Isle of the Seven Cities, was peopled by the Archbishop of Porto with six other bishops, and certain companions, male and female, who fled from Spain with their cattle and property. In the year 1414, a Spanish ship approached very near this Island. [13]

Inscription of Johannes Ruysch, 1508. The Isle of Demons further north may be Antillia's old companion, Satanazes. Ruysch map, Gruenlant-Antilia.jpg
Inscription of Johannes Ruysch, 1508. The Isle of Demons further north may be Antillia's old companion, Satanazes.

The legend is also found inscribed in the 1507/08 map of Johannes Ruysch, which reads (in English):

This island Antilia was once found by the Portuguese, but now when it is searched, cannot be found. People found here speak the Hispanic language, and are believed to have fled here in face of a barbarian invasion of Hispania, in the time of King Roderic, the last to govern Hispania in the era of the Goths. There is 1 archbishop here and 6 other bishops, each of whom has his own city; and so it is called the island of seven cities. The people live here in the most Christian manner, replete with all the riches of this century. [14]

Ruysch's inscription is reproduced almost verbatim in the Libro of Spanish historian Pedro de Medina (1548). [15] Medina gives the island's dimensions as 87 leagues in length and 28 in width, with "many good ports and rivers", and says it is situated on the latitude of the Straits of Gibraltar, that sailors have seen it from a distance, but disappears when they approach it. [16]

The adjustment to the 714 date and the burning of the ships is due to Ferdinand Columbus (1539), who also reports an alleged encounter with the islanders by a Portuguese ship in the time of Henry the Navigator (c. 1430s–1440s). [17] António Galvão (1563) reports that a 1447 Portuguese ship stumbled on the island, and met its (Portuguese-speaking) inhabitants, who reported they had fled there in the "time of Roderic" and asked whether the Moors still dominated Hispania. [18] More elaborate versions of this story have been told in more modern times. [19]

Yet another variant of the tale is told in Manuel de Faria e Sousa (1628), of Sacaru, a Visigothic governor of Mérida. Besieged by the Muslim armies and finding his situation hopeless, Sacaru negotiated capitulation, and proceeded, with all who wished to follow him, to embark on a fleet for exile in the Canary islands. Faria e Sousa notes they may not have reached their destination, but may have ended up instead on an Atlantic Ocean island "populated by Portuguese, that has seven cities ... which some imagine to be that one which can be seen from Madeira, but when they wish to reach it, disappears". [20]

The island is mentioned in a royal letter of King Afonso V of Portugal (dated 10 November 1475), where he grants the knight Fernão Teles "the Seven Cities and any other populated islands" he might find in the western Atlantic Ocean. [21] It is mentioned again in a royal letter (dated 24 July 1486), issued by King John II of Portugal at the request of Fernão Dulmo authorizing him to search for and "discover the island of Seven Cities". [22]

Already by the 1490s, there are rumors that silver can be found in the island's sands. [23] In the 16th century, the legend gave rise to the independent Spanish legends of the Seven Cities of Gold, reputed by mercenary conquistadors to be fabulously wealthy and located somewhere on the mainland of America.

Etymology

1455 map of Bartolomeo Pareto. Antilia is the large island on the western edge. Pareto 1455.jpg
1455 map of Bartolomeo Pareto. Antilia is the large island on the western edge.

The term Antillia is probably derived from the Portuguese "Ante-Ilha" ("Fore-Island", "Island of the Other", or "Opposite Island"). [24] It may be a reference to the belief that the island lay directly "opposite" from mainland Portugal (as it is usually charted), consistent with the Seven Cities story. Its size and rectangular shape is a near-mirror image of the Kingdom of Portugal itself. Some suggest the ante-ilha etymology might be older, possibly related in meaning to the "Aprositus" ("the Inaccessible"), the name reported by Ptolemy for one of the Fortunate Isles. [25]

Others regard the "ante-ilha" etymology as unsatisfactory, on the basis that "ante", in geographical usage, suggests it sits opposite another island, not a continent. [26] As a result, alternative etymological theories of Antillia abound. One theory was that "Antillia" is merely a poorly-transcribed reference to Plato's "Atlantis". [27] Another is that it is a corruption of Getulia , an ancient Roman name for a geographical location in northwestern Africa. [28] Another theory, famously forwarded by Alexander von Humboldt, is that it comes from the Arabic al-Tin or al-Tennyn, for "dragon", a reference to the old Arab legends about sea dragons on the edge of the ocean (frequently depicted in Arab maritime charts), and that the island may have been known as Jezirat al Tennyn, or "Dragon's Isle", in Andalusian Arab legend. [29]

One more recent hypothesis (although not finding wide acceptance), is that Antillia may mean "in front of Thule". [30] Sometimes written Tile, Thule was a semi-mythical reference to Iceland, already spoken of in classical sources. If so, then ante Tile, the "island before Thule", might very well be Ireland, which might have had seven "cities" at the time. [31] This theory, however, seems highly speculative. Ireland (Hibernia) was well-known and appears distinctly on all 15th-century maps.

In a fresh work on the subject, the author Demetrio Charalambous notes that in medieval maps, the name of the island is written Antylia, which is inconsistent with the interpretation commonly accepted that the name means "ante-ilha" in Portuguese. No medieval map records the name "Antilha", by which the author dismisses the name as being Portuguese. Instead, he noted that the first cartographers to mention the island (although they did not represent it) were Francesco and Domenico Pizigano in 1367, who called it Antullia. From this follows that the name means "Anti-Tullia", i.e. Anti-Thule, later transformed into Antyllia, and finally Antillia. [32] According to his interpretation, the name denotes the island opposite to Tyle, but this does not mean it is before Iceland, but beyond it, as represented in the maps. The name means the island opposite to Tyle by sailing southwest, and therefore refers to America.

Cartographic representation

The rediscovery of the Canary Islands by Europeans in the 14th century revived an interest in Atlantic island myths.[ citation needed ] With the existence of lands out in the Atlantic Ocean confirmed, 14th-century European geographers began plumbing the old legends and plotting and naming many of these mythical islands on their nautical charts, alongside the new discoveries. Mythical Atlantic islands litter the early 14th-century portolan charts of Pietro Vesconte and Angelino Dulcert.

Some historians believe the legend of Antillia was first insinuated cartographically in the 1367 portolan of the Venetian brothers Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano. This was insinuated by an inscription (albeit with no island) on the western edge of the map, which was read by some 19th-century historians as referring to "statues on the shores of Atullia" (ante ripas Atulliae) beyond which sailors should not pass. [33] However, later readings have suggested it should be read as the statues of Arcules (Hercules), and that the inscription's reference is probably to the Pillars of Hercules, the non plus ultra (outer limits) of ancient navigation, and not Antillia. [34]

1424 map of Zuane Pizzigano. First clear depiction of Antillia (large red rectangle), Ymana (future Royllo, small blue island to the west), Satanazes (large blue rectangle to the north) and Saya (future Damnar, umbrella-shaped red isle far north) Pizzigano 1424 map (Antilia islands detail).JPG
1424 map of Zuane Pizzigano. First clear depiction of Antillia (large red rectangle), Ymana (future Royllo, small blue island to the west), Satanazes (large blue rectangle to the north) and Saya (future Damnar, umbrella-shaped red isle far north)

Antillia makes its first unambiguous appearance in the 1424 portolan chart of Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano, as part of a group of four islands, lying far in the Atlantic Ocean some 250 leagues west of Portugal, and 200 leagues west of the Azores archipelago (which also usually depicted in contemporary charts). Pizzigano drew Antillia as a large, red, rectangular island, indented with bays and dotted with seven settlements, with the inscription ista ixola dixemo antilia ("this island is called antillia"). Some sixty leagues north of it is the comparable large blue Satanazes island (ista ixolla dixemo satanazes, called Satanagio/Satanaxio/Salvagio in later maps), capped by a small umbrella-shaped Saya (called "Tanmar" or "Danmar" in later maps). Some twenty leagues west of Antilia is the small blue companion island of Ymana (the 'Royllo' of later maps). These four islands will be collectively drawn together in many later 15th-century maps, with the same relative size, position and shape Pizzigano gave them in 1424. They are commonly referred to collectively as the "Antillia group" or (to use Beccario's label) the insulae de novo rep(er)te ("islands newly reported").

Cartographic appearances of Antillia (in chronological order): [35]

  1. 1424 map of Zuane Pizzigano of Venice as ista ixolla dixemo antilia
  2. 1435 map of Battista Beccario of Genoa
  3. 1436 map of Andrea Bianco of Venice
  4. 1455 map of Bartolomeo Pareto of Genoa – omits Satanazes
  5. 1463 map of Grazioso Benincasa of Ancona
  6. 1463 map of Pedro Roselli of Majorca
  7. 1466 map of Pedro Roselli
  8. 1468 map of Pedro Roselli
  9. 1460s anonymous Weimar map (attrib. to Conte di Ottomano Freducci of Ancona) – labelled as septe civit [36]
  10. 1470 map of Grazioso Benincasa
  11. c. 1475 map of Cristoforo Soligo of Venice – omits Satanazes, Antillia labelled as y de sete zitade [36] [ what language is this? ]
  12. 1474 "map" of Paolo Toscanelli – map missing, but Antilia referenced in letter.
  13. 1476 map of Andrea Benincasa of Ancona (son of Grazioso) – omits Satanazes
  14. 1480 map of Albino de Canepa of Venice
  15. 1482 map of Grazioso Benincasa
  16. c. 1482 map of Grazioso Benincasa (different from above)
  17. 1482 map of Jacme Bertran of Majorca
  18. 1487 map of anonymous Majorcan cartographer
  19. 1489 map of Albino de Canepa
  20. 1492 Nuremberg globe of Martin Behaim – omits Satanazes, first with inscription relating legend. [37]
  21. 1493 anonymous Laon globe
  22. c. 1500 Paris map ("Columbus map") of anonymous Portuguese/Genoese (?) cartographer. [38]
  23. 1507-08 map of Johannes Ruysch – relocates Satanazes to Isle of Demons(?), relates legend.

As is evident, on some maps (e.g. Pareto, Soligo, Behaim), Antillia appears without Satanazes. [39]

Significantly, although included in his map of 1436, the Antillia group is omitted in the later Andrea Bianco map of 1448, although some authors believe that two rectangular islands depicted by Bianco much further south (in the environs of Cape Verde), and labelled merely dos ermanos ("two brothers") may be a reference to Antilia and Satanazes.

The controversial (possibly fake) Vinland map, dated by its supporters around 1440, shows the outlines of Antillia and Satanazes islands (but not the two smaller ones) under the general label Magnae insulae Beati Brandani (great islands of St Brendan).

Antillia (and all its companions) are conspicuously omitted in the map of Gabriel de Vallseca (1439), the Genoese map (1457), the Fra Mauro map (1459) and the maps of Henricus Martellus Germanus (1484, 1489) and Pedro Reinel (c. 1485). With a few exceptions (e.g. Ruysch), Antillia disappears from almost all known maps composed after Christopher Columbus's voyages to the Americas in the 1490s (e.g. it is absent on the 1500 map of Juan de la Cosa, the Cantino planisphere of 1502, etc.)

It appears in virtually all of the known surviving Portolan charts of the Atlantic – notably those of the Genoese B. Beccario or Beccaria (1435), the Venetian Andrea Bianco (1436), and Grazioso Benincasa (1476 and 1482). [40] It is usually accompanied by the smaller and equally legendary islands of Royllo, St Atanagio, and Tanmar, the whole group often classified as insulae de novo repertae, newly discovered islands. [41]

Andea Bianco, 1436. Antillia at right Bianco.jpg
Andea Bianco, 1436. Antillia at right

On these maps, Antillia was typically depicted on a similar scale to that of Portugal, lying around 200 miles west of the Azores. It was drawn as an almost perfect rectangle, its long axis running north–south, but with seven trefoil bays shared between the east and west coasts. Each city lay on a bay. The form of the island occasionally becomes more figurative than the semi-abstract representations of Bartolomeo de Pareto, Benincasa and others: Bianco, for instance, shifts its orientation to northwest–southeast, transmutes generic bays into river mouths (including a large one on the northeastern coast), and elongates a southern tail into a cape with a small cluster of islets offshore.

Around the time of Spain's discovery of South America, Antillia dwindles substantially in size on Behaim's globe and later charts. Contrary to the earlier descriptions of the two island groups as distinct entities, a 16th-century notion relegates Antillia to the island of São Miguel, the largest of the Azores, where a national park centering on two lakes still bears the name Sete Cidades National Park.

Medieval beliefs and the Age of Discovery

A Portuguese legend tells how the island was settled in the early 8th century in the face of the Moorish conquest of Iberia by the Archbishop of Porto, six other bishops and their parishioners to avoid the ensuing Moorish invasion. Each congregation founded a city, namely, Aira, Anhuib, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con, [42] and once established, burnt their caravel ships as a symbol of their autonomy. The reporting of this settlement comes courtesy of a young couple who eloped back to Europe on a rare trading ship [43] and reported the seven cities as a model of agricultural, economic and cultural harmony. Centuries later, the island became known as a proto-utopian commonwealth, free from the disorders of less favoured states. [44]

Since these events predated the Kingdom of Portugal and the clergy's heritage marked a claim to significant strategical gains, Spain counterclaimed that the expedition was, in fact, theirs. [45] One of the chief early descriptions of the heritage of Antillia is inscribed on the globe which the geographer Martin Behaim made at Nuremberg in 1492. Behaim relates the Catholic escape from the barbarians, though his date of 734 is probably a mistake for 714. The inscription adds that a Spanish vessel sighted the island in 1414, [41] while a Portuguese crew claimed to have landed on Antillia in the 1430s.

In a later version of the legend, the bishops fled from Mérida, Spain, when Moors attacked it around the year 1150.[ citation needed ]

Toscanelli's notions of the geography of the Atlantic Ocean. Antillia at the middle-right. Atlantic Ocean, Toscanelli, 1474.jpg
Toscanelli's notions of the geography of the Atlantic Ocean. Antillia at the middle-right.

With this legend underpinning the growing reports of a bountiful civilisation midway between Europe and Cipangu, or Japan, [46] the quest to discover the Seven Cities attracted significant attention. However, by the last decade of the 15th century, the Portuguese state's official sponsorship of such exploratory voyages had ended, [47] and in 1492, under the Spanish flag of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus set out on his historic journey to Asia, citing the island as the perfect halfway house by the authority of Paul Toscanelli. [48] Columbus had supposedly gained charts and descriptions from a Spanish navigator, who had "sojourned ... and died also" at Columbus's home in Madeira, after having made landfall on Antillia. [49]

Following John Cabot's first 1497 voyage to Newfoundland, several people believed he had discovered Antillia. Upon Cabot's return to England, two residents of Bristol – the Italian merchant Raimondo de Soncino (in a letter to the Duke of Milan, dated August 24, 1497) and Bristol merchant John Day (in a letter to Christopher Columbus, written c. December 1497) – refer to Cabot making landfall and coasting the "Island of Seven Cities".

Later influence

Others following d'Anghiera suggested contenders in the West Indies for Antillia's heritage (most often either Puerto Rico or Trinidad), and as a result the Caribbean islands became known as the Antilles. As European explorations continued in the Americas, maps reduced the scale of the island Antillia, tending to place it mid-Atlantic, whereas the Seven Cities of Gold were attributed to mainland Central or North America, as the various European powers vied for territory in the New World.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prince Henry the Navigator</span> Portuguese navigator and Prince (1394–1460)

Dom Henrique of Portugal, Duke of Viseu, better known as Prince Henry the Navigator, was a central figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire and in the 15th-century European maritime discoveries and maritime expansion. Through his administrative direction, he is regarded as the main initiator of what would be known as the Age of Discovery. Henry was the fourth child of King John I of Portugal, who founded the House of Aviz.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piri Reis</span> Turkish admiral and cartographer

Ahmed Muhiddin Piri, better known as Piri Reis, was an Ottoman navigator, geographer and cartographer. He is primarily known today for his maps and charts collected in his Kitab-ı Bahriye, a book that contains detailed information on early navigational techniques as well as relatively accurate charts for their time, describing the important ports and cities of the Mediterranean Sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Senegal River</span> River in West Africa

The Senegal River is a 1086 km (675 mi) long river in West Africa; much of its length marks part of the border between Senegal and Mauritania. It has a drainage basin of 270000 km2, a mean flow of 680 m3/s (24,000 cu ft/s), and an annual discharge of 21.5 km3 (5.2 cu mi). Important tributaries are the Falémé River, Karakoro River, and the Gorgol River. The river divides into two branches once it passes Kaédi The left branch, called the Doué, runs parallel to the main river to the north. After 200 km (120 mi) the two branches rejoin a few kilometers downstream of Podor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Behaim</span> German cartographer

Martin Behaim, also known as Martin von Behaim and by various forms of Martin of Bohemia, was a German textile merchant and cartographer. He served John II of Portugal as an adviser in matters of navigation and participated in a voyage to West Africa. He is now best known for his Erdapfel, the world's oldest known globe, which he produced for the Imperial City of Nuremberg in 1492.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sete Cidades (Ponta Delgada)</span> Civil parish in Azores, Portugal

Sete Cidades is a civil parish in the center of the municipality of Ponta Delgada, that is likewise located in the center of a massive volcanic crater three miles across, also referred to as Sete Cidades. The population in 2011 was 793, in an area of 19.19 km2. It is one of the smallest parishes of Ponta Delgada by population, although the largest in area. It contains the localities Cerrado da Ladeira, Cerrado das Freiras and Sete Cidades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Isle of Demons</span>

The Isle of Demons is a phantom island once associated with Quirpon Island, Newfoundland, in Canada. It was generally shown as two islands. It began appearing on maps in the beginning of the 16th century and disappeared in the mid-17th century. It could also simply be a translation from First Nations people who often avoided areas where a person had died, believing it was haunted by spirits. This results in many islands with the same reference.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli</span> Italian Renaissance astronomer

Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli was an Italian mathematician, astronomer, and cosmographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Piri Reis map</span> 1513 Ottoman nautical chart

The Piri Reis map is a world map compiled in 1513 by the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis. Approximately one third of the map survives, housed in the Topkapı Palace in Istanbul. When rediscovered in 1929, the remaining fragment garnered international attention as it includes a partial copy of an otherwise lost map by Christopher Columbus.

Angelino Dulcert, probably the same person known as Angelino de Dalorto, and whose real name was probably Angelino de Dulceto or Dulceti or possibly Angelí Dolcet, was an Italian-Majorcan cartographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waldseemüller map</span> 1507 German world map

The Waldseemüller map or Universalis Cosmographia is a printed wall map of the world by German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, originally published in April 1507. It is known as the first map to use the name "America". The name America is placed on South America on the main map. As explained in Cosmographiae Introductio, the name was bestowed in honor of the Italian Amerigo Vespucci.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the Azores</span> History of the Azores

The following article describes the history of the Azores, an archipelago composed of nine volcanic islands in the Macaronesia region of the North Atlantic Ocean, about 1,400 km (870 mi) west of Lisbon, about 1,500 km (930 mi) northwest of Morocco, and about 1,930 km (1,200 mi) southeast of Newfoundland, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Royllo</span>

Royllo, is a legendary phantom island that was once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean. It is probably identical with the island originally called Ymana in a 1424 nautical chart of Zuane Pizzigano. The island is usually depicted in many 15th-century maps as a small island located slightly to the west of the much larger island of Antillia. It is often found in the group insulae de novo repertae, or "newly discovered islands" along with other legendary islands.

Gabriel de Vallseca, also referred to as Gabriel de Valseca and Gabriel de Valsequa was a cartographer of Jewish descent connected to the Majorcan cartographic school. His most notable map is the portolan of 1439, containing the first depiction of the recently-discovered Azores islands.

Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano, known as the Pizzigani brothers, were 14th-century Venetian cartographers. Their surname is sometimes given as Pizigano in older sources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zuane Pizzigano</span>

Zuane Pizzigano, was a 15th-century Venetian cartographer. He is the author of a famous 1424 portolan chart, the first known to depict the phantom islands of the purported Antillia archipelago, in the north Atlantic Ocean.

The Weimar map is an anonymous 15th-century Italian portolan chart, held by the Grand Ducal Library of Weimar. Although frequently dated as 1424, most historians believe it was probably composed a half century later. The author is unknown, although said to be a member of the Freducci family of cartographers of Ancona, most probably Conte di Ottomano Freducci. Faint and fragile, the Weimar map is rarely photographed and has been hard to decipher.

The island of Satanazes is a legendary island once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean, and depicted on many 15th-century maps.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medici-Laurentian Atlas</span>

The Medici-Laurentian Atlas, also known simply as the Medici Atlas, is an anonymous 14th-century set of maps, probably composed by a Genoese cartographer and explicitly dated 1351, although most historians believe it was composed, or at least retouched, later. The atlas is currently held by the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, Italy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battista Beccario</span> 15th-century Genoese cartographer

Battista Beccario, also known as Baptista Beccharius, was a 15th-century Genoese cartographer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornaro Atlas</span> Venetian collection of nautical charts and tracts

The Cornaro Atlas is an extensive Venetian collection of nautical charts and tracts, currently held in the Egerton Collection of manuscripts of the British Library.

References

  1. Cortesão (1970):p.12)
  2. Beazley (1897-1906, 1899:p.lxxii)
  3. O'Curry (1861: p.289ff); Beazley (1897, vol.1, p.230ff); Babcock (1922: Ch. 3)
  4. Fridtjof Nansen (1911: vol.2, p.9)
  5. Both Plutarch (Life of Sertorius) and Pliny the Elder reported that fishermen from Gades (Cadiz) routinely visited Atlantic islands to the southwest.
  6. Beazley (1897: vol.1, p.465)
  7. Beazley (1906: vol. 3, p.532). Cortesão (1970: p.8)
  8. Nansen (1911: vol. 2, p.54)
  9. Alexander von Humboldt (1837) Examen critique, Vol. 2, p.216ff.; See also Babckock (1922: Ch.4)
  10. Babcock (1922: Ch.6)
  11. For this often-emulated trope, see Aeneid V, influenced by the tradition that Alexander the Great burned his ships on the Aegean shore and influencing the reference made by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar in 1546 to Hernàn Cortés burning his ships on the Mexican coast. The Moorish commander Tariq ibn Ziyad also ordered his ships to be burned.
  12. Cortesão (1954 (1975): p.140)
  13. Beazley (1897: vol. 1, p.234). See also Babcock (1922: p.72)
  14. Cortesão (1954 (1975): p.127)
  15. Pedro de Medina (1548 (1595 ed.), p.119). Curiously, Pedro de Medina says the inscription comes from a "very old" nautical map made by "Tolomeo" at the direction of "Papa Urbano". Presumably, he means a map based on (rather than by) Ptolemy. The last pope by that name was Pope Urban VI (r. 1378-1389). If Medina has not mistaken his popes, and if there was such a map, then that map would contain the oldest reference to Antillia on record.
  16. Medina (p.119)
  17. Ferdinand Columbus, Historia del Almirante (1539: ch. 8 p.45).
  18. António Galvão (1563: p.72)
  19. A rather fancified version of the tale is told in Higginson (1883:p.93), who relates that news of the island's existence was first brought to Europe by an eloping pair of lovers who fled the island.
  20. Sousa, Manuel de Faria e (1677). Epítome de las historias portuguesas: dividido en quatro partes (in Spanish). por Francisco Foppens.
  21. Cortesão (1954 (1975) pp. 124-5). A similar grant might have been made earlier in 1473 to Infanta D. Brites, of "an island, that appeared beyond the island of Santiago", but was not found when it was sought. ibid.
  22. Cortesão (1954 (1975) p. 125)
  23. In the Paris map ("Columbus Map") of c. 1500 (La Ronciere, 1924), the inscription by Antillia reads: Hec Septem Civitatum insula vocatur, nunc Portugallensium colonia efecta, ut Gromite citantur Hispanorum, in qua reperiri inter arenas argentum perhibetur. ("Here is the island called of the Seven Cities, a colony inhabited by Portuguese, according to some Spanish sailors, in the sands of which silver can be found.")
  24. Cortesão (1954 (1975): p.107).
  25. Gaffarel (1882:p.204)
  26. This objection was already articulated by Vicenzio Formaleoni (1783: p.27-28), one of the first to draw scholarly attention to Antillia.
  27. Babcock (1922: p.148). D'Avezac (1845: p.27) briefly entertained this theory. The Atlantis etymology was also considered, and discarded, by Humboldt (1837: p.192). See Cortesão (1954 (1975): p.118). It has however, remained extant among some modern "Atlantis" theorists. Lewis Spence (1925) suggested that Antilla is the remnant of Atlantis, which had broken up following a natural disaster. Spence (p.87) cites Brasseur de Bourgbourg, Bancroft and Le Plongeon as supporters of this theory, "none of them authorities of any great weight, I fear, and all inclined to rashness."
  28. This was first forwarded by Crone (1938) and initially favored by Morison (1940). See Diffie and Winius (1977: p.441). Although commonly associated with the North African hinterlands, Crone asserts that "Getulia" is identified by some Medieval geographers as the ancient name of the location of where Hercules was alleged to have set up his pillars (Pillars of Hercules). However, later, Morison (1955: p.469) embraces the 'ante-ilha' hypothesis, stating its "fairly obvious" that "the name means nothing more or less than opposite island or island over against". Crone (1955) published a note acknowledging the alternative reading of the 1367 inscription he believed was Getulia as "Arcules" (Hercules), stating it "deserves consideration", although it remains unclear whether he had abandoned his own Getulia reading.
  29. Alexander von Humboldt (1837) Examen critique, Vol. 2, p.211. This hypothesis was in fact first proposed by Buache (1806: p.27-28). See also d'Avezac (1845: p.27).
  30. Barreto (1992: p.163) published this hypothesis.
  31. According to Barreto (1992: p.163), Ireland had seven cities at the time, which he lists as Cork, Limerick, Waterford, Wexford, Dublin, Dundalk and Belfast, all of which happen to be situated on the coast, at or not too far from bays. However, the author of this article could not find corroboration for Barreto's statement. On a side note, J. Godkin (1867, Ireland and her Churches, p.23) notes that in old Irish churches, a diocese typically had not one, but seven "bishops".
  32. Charalambous, Demetrio, "Descubrimiento en el mar de papel", Buenos Aires, 1995. See also "The enigma of the isle of gold", in Revista de Historia de América, number 118, July–December 1994.
  33. Jean-Nicholas Buache (1806: ), Konrad Kretschmer (1892: 195-7), A.E. Nordenskiöld (1897: p.164).
  34. This was first proposed by Hennig (1945) and supported by Armando Cortesão (1954 (1975) p.106). Cortesão (p.74) notes that an inscription about Hercules's "statues" to mark the edge of safe navigation was common practice in Arab charts. Crone (1938) first proposed to read it as Getulliae (Getulia), but later (Crone, 1947) acknowledged the Hercules reading.
  35. List from Armando Cortesão (1954 (1975 ed.): p.156)
  36. 1 2 Cortesão, p.125
  37. Cortesão, p.125–126
  38. The "Columbus Map", held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris and dated tentatively between 1490 and 1500, was attributed by La Ronciere (1924) to Christopher Columbus himself, possibly under the supervision of Bartholomew Columbus. Although this is now doubted, it is still sometimes called the "Columbus map". Cortesão (1954) identifies the author as Portuguese, others as a Genoese living in Portugal.
  39. Cortesão (1954 (1975): p.134)
  40. See also- Bartolomeo de Pareto, 1455; Petrus Roselli, 1468, held by the Hispanic Society of America; attr. Toscanelli, 1474: original is lost, but a copy survives in Columbus's notes
  41. 1 2 Wikisource-logo.svg One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Antilia". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 126.
  42. Pizzigano map, 1424
  43. For a modern recantation of the various early sources, see Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, Thomas Wentworth-Higginson, 1899.
  44. Chisholm 1911.
  45. Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic, Thomas Wentworth-Higginson, 1989.
  46. Paul Toscanelli's 1474 letter to the Spanish Court, 'Toscanelli and Columbus', H. Vignaud, 1902
  47. "RA Skelton, "Explorers' Maps: Chapters in the Cartographic Record of Geographical Discovery"". Archived from the original on 2011-03-20. Retrieved 2017-08-24.
  48. Paul Toscanelli's 1474 letter to the Spanish Court, RA Skelton, "Explorers' Maps: Chapters in the Cartographic Record of Geographical Discovery"
  49. Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, De Orbe Novo, 1511–1125 https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/12425

Sources