It is true that this map shows also another Brazil of the divided kind
(in this instance with a channel crossing it from east to west) located
in mid-Atlantic about where Prunes and others show their bisected
Brazil. But this seems only an instance of conservation and deference
for authority, such as has often been manifested in cartography. Of
such deference for authority perhaps there is no more striking instance
than Bianco’s map of 1448, which places the rediscovered Azores where
they should be but also preserves them, on the faith of older maps,
where they should not be--making a double series. The lesser bisected
mid-Atlantic Brazil of the Catalan map may well be set aside as a
survival without significance.
But the duplication by Bianco in 1448 raises a question of distance,
which must be considered, for his Azores retained from the maps
antedating the Portuguese rediscoveries are far nearer the coast of
Europe than the truth at all warrants; and, so far as we can judge, the
same cautious underestimating was applied to all oceanic islands as
reported. Corvo, for example, is actually nearly half-way across the
Atlantic, yet on all the maps for a long time is brought eastward to a
position much nearer Portugal. We must suppose that the region about
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, if visited, would be similarly treated, and
we cannot tell how far the minimization of distance might be carried
by some map-makers.
[Illustration: FIG. 7--Section of the Catalan map of about 1480 showing
Brazil Island and Green Island (Illa Verde). (After Nordenskiöld’s
photographic facsimile.)]
THE SYLVANUS MAP OF 1511
The fact is, this matter does not rest in supposition only, for the
thing has undoubtedly happened. The map of Sylvanus,[113] 1511, brings
the Gulf of St. Lawrence and surroundings as an insular body almost as
near Ireland as are many of the presentations of Brazil Island on older
maps. He shows in front a single large island; a square gulf behind it;
a bent shore line forming the border on the north, west, and south;
and two gaps well representing the Straits of Belle Isle and Cabot.
The names given are Terra Laboratorum and Regalis Domus. Nobody doubts
that it illustrates the St. Lawrence Gulf region, though there has been
much speculation as to what unknown explorer has had his discoveries
commemorated here, thirteen years before the first voyage of Cartier.
Why should not a like episode of discovery and imperfect record have
happened at a still earlier date?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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