In Irish mythology, Donn is an ancestor of the Gaels and is believed to have been a god of the dead. Donn is said to dwell in Tech Duinn, where the souls of the dead gather. He may have originally been an aspect of the Dagda. Folklore about Donn survived into the modern era in parts of Ireland, in which he is said to be a phantom horseman riding a white horse.
Mayda is a non-existent island in the North Atlantic that has been shown on several published maps at various points in history. It was most often represented as being crescent-shaped and its position has varied widely over time. Early maps drew the island west of Brittany and southwest of Ireland, but it later moved towards the Americas.
Antillia 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.
The Cantino planisphere or Cantino world map is a manuscript Portuguese world map preserved at the Biblioteca Estense in Modena, Italy. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502. It measures 220 x 105 cm.
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.
Abraham Cresques, whose real name was Cresques (son of) Abraham, was a 14th-century Jewish cartographer from Palma, Majorca, then part of the Crown of Aragon. In collaboration with his son, Jehuda Cresques, Cresques is credited with the authorship of the celebrated Catalan Atlas of 1375.
Portolan charts are nautical charts, first made in the 13th century in the Mediterranean basin and later expanded to include other regions. The word portolan comes from the Italian portolano, meaning "related to ports or harbors", and which since at least the 17th century designates "a collection of sailing directions".
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.
The name Brazil is a shortened form of Terra do Brasil, a reference to the brazilwood tree. The name was given in the early 16th century to the territories leased to the merchant consortium led by Fernão de Loronha, to exploit brazilwood for the production of wood dyes for the European textile industry.
"Majorcan cartographic school" is the term coined by historians to refer to the collection of predominantly Jewish cartographers, cosmographers and navigational instrument-makers and some Christian associates that flourished in Majorca in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries until the expulsion of the Jews. The label is usually inclusive of those who worked in Catalonia. The Majorcan school is frequently contrasted with the contemporary Italian cartography school.
Pietro Vesconte was a Genoese cartographer and geographer. A pioneer of the field of the portolan chart, he influenced Italian and Catalan mapmaking throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He appears to have been the first professional mapmaker to sign and date his works regularly.
Gaillimh inion Breasail is the name of the mythical woman from whom the river and city of Galway, Ireland, derives its name.
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.
Cartography throughout the 14th-16th centuries played a significant role in the expansion of the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula for a multitude of reasons. Primarily, the maps developed during this period served as navigational tools for maritime folk such as explorers, sailors and navigators. Mostly the expansion of the Crown of Aragon (which included the Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Valencia and Kingdom of Majorca, together with the Principality of Catalonia, all its territories with seashore on the Mediterranean Sea. The Crown of Aragon controlled the routes across the Mediterranean Sea from the Kingdom of Jerusalem to Europe, as part of the commercial-trade route known as the Silk Road.
Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano, known as the Pizzigani brothers, were 14th-century Venetian cartographers. Their surname is sometimes given as Pizigano in older sources.
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 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.
The Corbitis Atlas is a late 14th-century atlas of four portolan charts, composed by an anonymous Venetian cartographer, and held by the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana in Venice, Italy.
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.
