Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
History
Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 1 (of 8): Aboriginal America
America -- Discovery and exploration; America -- History; United States -- History
editions of the voyages, among which reference only need be made to the
original Latin edited by M. Jubinal,[467] and to the English version
edited by Thomas Wright for the Percy Society.[468] A Latin text of the
fourteenth century is now to be found in the _Acta Sanctorum Hiberniae
ex codice Salmanticensi nunc premium integre edita opera C. de Smedt
et J. de Backer_ (Edinb. etc., 1888), 4to, pp. 111-154. As is well
known, Philoponus gives an account of the voyages of St. Brandan with a
curious map, in which he places the island N. W. of Spain and N. E. of
the Canaries, or _Insulae Fortunatae_.[469] The island of St. Brandan
was at first apparently imagined in the north, but it afterward took a
more southerly location. Honoré d’Autun identifies it with a certain
island called Perdita, once discovered and then lost in the Atlantic;
we have here, perhaps, some reminiscence of the name “Aprositos,” which
Ptolemy bestows on one of the _Fortunatae Insulae_.[470] In some of
the earlier maps there is an inlet on the west coast of Ireland called
_Lacus Fortunatus_, which is packed with islands which are called
_Insulae Fortunatae_ or _Beatae_, and sometimes given as 300 or 368
in number.[471] But the Pizigani map of 1367 puts the _Isole dicte
Fortunate S. Brandany_ in the place of Madeira; and Behaim’s globe, in
1492, sets it down in the latitude of Cape de Verde,—a legend against
it assigning the discovery to St. Brandan in 565.
It is this island which was long supposed to be seen as a mountainous
land southeast of the Canaries. After the discovery of the Azores
expeditions were fitted out to search for it, and were continued until
1721, which are described by Viera, and have been since retold by all
writers on the subject.[472] The island was again reported as seen in
1759.
ANTILLIA, OR ISLE OF SEVEN CITIES.—The largest of these islands, the
one most persistent in its form and location, is Antillia, which is
depicted as a large rectangular island, extending from north to south,
lying in the mid-Atlantic about lat. 35° N. This island first appears
on the map of 1424, preserved at Weimar, and is found on the principal
maps of the rest of the century, notably in the Bianco of 1436.[473] On
some maps of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries appears a smaller
island under the name of Sette Citade, or Sete Ciudades, which is
properly another name for Antillia, as Toscanelli says in his famous
letter, wherein he recommended Antillia as likely to be useful as a
way-station on the India voyage. We owe to Behaim the preservation on
his globe of 1492 of the legend of this island. It was discovered and
settled, according to him, by refugees from Spain in 714, after the
defeat of King Roderick by the Moors. The settlers were accompanied by
an archbishop and six bishops, each of whom built him a town. There
is a story that the island was rediscovered by a Portuguese sailor in
1447.[474]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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