Legendary islands of the Atlantic; a study in medieval geography

FIG. 4 Section of the Dalorto map of 1325 showing Brazil, Daculi, and other
legendary islands. (After Magnaghi's photographic facsimile.)

52 ISLAND OF BRAZIL

up from two Gaelic syllables "breas" and "ail," each highly
commendatory in implication and carrying that note of admira-
tion alike to man or island. Quite in consonance therewith the
fifteenth-century map of Fra Mauro in I459 3 not only delineated
and named this Atlantic Berzil but appended the inscription
"Queste isole de Hibernia son dite fortunate," ranking it as one of
the "Fortunate Islands."

ANOTHER SUGGESTED DERIVATION

On the whole, this seems the more likely channel of derivation
of the name; or, if there were two such channels, then the more
important one. For there is another suggested derivation, of
which much has rightly been made and which we must by no
means neglect. Red dyewood bore the name "brazil" in the early
Middle Ages, a word derived, Humboldt believed, 4 by translation
from the Arabic bakkam of like meaning, on record in the ninth
century. He notes that Brazir, one form of the name, as we have
seen, recalls the French braise, the Portuguese braza and braseiro,
the Spanish brasero, the Italian braciere, all having to do with
fire, which is normally more or less red like the dye. He does not
know any tongue of medieval Asia which could supply brasilli
or the like for dyewood. He suggests also the possibility of the
word's being a borrowed place name, like indigo or jalap, com-
memorating the region of origin, but cannot identify any such
place. His treatment of the topic leaves a feeling of uncertainty,
with a preference for some sort of transformation from "bakkam"
which would yield "brazil" probably by a figure of speech.

The earliest distinctly recognizable mention of brazil as a
commodity occurs in a commercial treaty of 1193 between the

8 [M. F.] Santarem: Atlas compose de mappemondes, de portulans, et de cartes
hydrographiques et historiques depuis le VI e jusqu'au XVII e sicle . . . devant
servir de preuves a 1'histoire de la cosmographie et de la cartographic pendant le
Moyen Age .... Paris, 1842-53, Pis. 43-48 (Quaritch's notation); reference on
PI. 46.

4 Alexander von Humboldt: Examen critique de 1'histoire de la geographic du
nouveau continent, 5 vols., Paris, 1836-39^; reference in Vol. 2, pp. 216-223. See
also Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists: Arctic Exploration in Early Times, transl.
by A. G. Chater, 2 vols., New York, 1911; reference in Vol. 2, p. 229.