Legendary islands of the Atlantic; a study in medieval geography

CATALAN MAP OF ABOUT 1480 61

one set of characteristics, another with the other set, and might
depict the region accordingly. This is the more probable because
the region was peculiarly exposed to accidental or intentional
discovery from the west of the British islands and is known, in
fact, to have been the first to be reached therefrom of all North
America in times of historic record.

It must not be supposed that Brazil was always thought of as
relatively near Europe. Nicolay in I56O 39 (Fig. 6) and Zaltieri in
I566 40 prepared maps which show a Brazil Island in distinctly
American waters, practically forming part of the archipelago into
which Newfoundland was supposed to be divided, or at least lying
between it and the Grand Banks. These presentations no doubt
may have been suggested by American discoveries and later
theories, especially as no navigator had been able to find Brazil
at any point nearer Europe; but again they may be at least
partly due to surviving early traditions of the great distance
westward at which this island lay. The Brazil of Nicolay and
Zaltieri is, to be sure, a very small affair; but their maps were
made about two and a half centuries after the earliest one which
shows this island ample time for many misconceptions to creep
in. Their only value is in their illustration of locality.

THE CATALAN MAP OF ABOUT 1480

More important in every way is a Catalan map (Fig. 7) pre-
served in Milan and reproduced by Nordenskiold in I892, 41
but since copied partly by Nansen, by Westropp, and by others.
It belongs to the fifteenth century perhaps about 1480 and
deserves clearly to rank as the only map before Columbus, thus
far reported, which shows a part of North America other than
Greenland. The latter had long before appeared in the well-
known map of Claudius Clavus, I427 43 (Fig. 16), no doubt on

" A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, PI. 27.

40 Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 19, map 3.

41 A. E. Nordenskiold: Bidrag till Nordens aldsta Kartografi, Stockholm, 1892,
PI. 5. Also (reduced) in Nansen's "In Northern Mists," Vol. 2, p. 280, and in
T. J. Westropp's "Brasil," PI. 20, facing p. 260.

A. E. Nordenskiold, Periplus, p. 90; also discussed by Joseph Fischer: The
Discoveries of the Norsemen in America, With Special Relation to Their Early
Cartographical Representation, transl. by B. H. Soulsby, and London, 1903.

62

ISLAND OF BRAZIL