Antillia
Encyclopedia
Antillia is a legendary 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 (Ilha das Sete Cidades (Portuguese
), Septe Cidades).
It originates from an old Iberian
legend, set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania c. 714. Seeking to flee from the Muslim conquerors, seven Christian Visigothic bishops embarked with their flocks on ships and set sail westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually landing on an island (Antilha) where they founded seven settlements.
The island makes its first explicit appearance as a large rectangular island in the 1424 Pizzigano Map
, a portolan chart
attributed to Zuane Pizzigano. Thereafter, it routinely appeared in most nautical charts of the 15th century. After 1492, when the north Atlantic Ocean
began to be routinely sailed, and became more accurately mapped, depictions of Antillia gradually disappeared. It nonetheless lent its name to the Spanish Antilles
.
The routine appearance of such a large "Antillia" in 15th century nautical charts has led to speculation that it might represent the American
landmass, and has fueled many theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
.
. Utopian tales of the Fortunate Islands (or Isles of the Blest) were sung by poets like Homer
and Horace
. Plato
articulated the dystopian legend of Atlantis
. Ancient writers like Plutarch
, Strabo
and, more explicitly, Pliny the Elder
and Ptolemy
, testified to the real existence of the Canary Islands. Some of their real names re-emerged as distinct mythical islands with associated legends, e.g. capraria (the island of goats) and canaria (the island of dogs) are often found on maps separately from the Canary Islands (e.g. Pizzigani brothers, 1367)
The Middle Ages saw the emergence of Christian
versions of these tales. Notable among these are the Irish immram
a, such as the immram of Ui Corra, or the sea voyages of the 6th century Irish missionaries St. Brendan and St. Malo. These are the source for several legendary Atlantic islands such as St. Brendan's Island
and the Island of Ima. The sagas of Norse
seafarers to Greenland
and Vinland
, notably the Grœnlendinga saga
and the saga of Erik the Red, have also been influential. Norse encounters with North American indigenous peoples
seem to have filtered into Irish immrama.
The peoples of the Iberian peninsula
, who were closest to the real Atlantic islands of the Canaries
, Madeira
and Azores
, and whose seafarers and fisherman may have seen and even visited them, articulated their own tales. Medieval Andalusian
Arab
s related stories of Atlantic island encounters in the legend (told by al-Masudi
) of the 9th century navigator Khashkhash
of Cordoba and the 12th century story (told by al-Idrisi) of the eight Maghurin (Wanderers) of Lisbon.
Given the tendency of the legends of different seafarers – Greek, Norse, Irish, Arab and Iberian – to cross-fertilize and influence each other, the exact source of some legendary Atlantic islands – such as the mythical islands of Brasil and the Isle of Mam – are impossible to disentangle.
It is from Christian Iberia that the legend of Antillia emerged. According to the legend, in c. 714, during the Muslim conquest of Hispania, seven Christian bishops of Visigothic Hispania
, led by the Bishop of Porto
, embarked with their parishioners on ships and set sail westward into the Atlantic Ocean to escape the Arab conquerors. They stumbled upon an island and decided to settle there, burning their ships to permanently sever their link to their now Muslim-dominated former homeland. The bishops erected seven settlements (the "Seven Cities") on the island. In one reading (from Grazioso Benincasa), the seven cities are named Aira, Antuab, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con.
The legend, in this form, is told in various places. The principal source is an inscription on Martin Behaim
's 1492 Nuremberg globe which reads (in English translation):
The legend is also found inscribed in the 1507/08 map of Johannes Ruysch
, which reads (in English):
Ruysch's inscription is reproduced almost verbatim in the Libro of Spanish historian Pedro de Medina (1548). Medina gives the island's dimensions as 87 leagues in length and 28 in width, with "many good ports and rivers", and says it is situated on the latitude
of the Straits of Gibraltar, that sailors have seen it from a distance, but disappears when they approach it.
The adjustment to the 714 date and the burning of the ships is due to Ferdinand Columbus (1539), who also reports an alleged encounter with the islanders by a Portuguese ship in the time of Henry the Navigator (c.1430s-40s). António Galvão
(1563) reports that a 1447 Portuguese ship stumbled on the island, and met its (Portuguese-speaking) inhabitants, who reported they had fled there in the "time of Roderic
" and asked whether the Moors still dominated Hispania. More elaborate versions of this story have been told in more modern times.
Yet another variant of the tale is told in Manuel de Faria e Sousa
(1628), of Sacaru, a Visigothic governor of Mérida
. Besieged by the Muslim armies and finding his situation hopeless, Sacaru negotiated capitulation, and proceeded, with all who wished to follow him, to embark on a fleet for exile in the Canary islands. Faria e Sousa notes they may not have reached their destination, but may have ended up instead on an Atlantic Ocean island "populated by Portuguese, that has seven cities...which some imagine to be that one which can be seen from Madeira
, but when they wish to reach it, disappears".
The island is mentioned in a royal letter of King Afonso V of Portugal
(dated 10 November 1475), where he grants the knight Fernão Teles "the Seven Cities and any other populated islands" he might find in the western Atlantic Ocean. It is mentioned again in a royal letter (dated 24 July 1486), issued by King John II of Portugal
at the request of Fernão Dulmo authorizing him to search for and "discover the island of Seven Cities".
Already by the 1490s, there are rumors that silver
can be found in the island's sands. In the 16th century, the legend gave rise to the independent Spanish legends of the Seven Cities of Gold
, reputed by mercenary conquistadors to be fabulously wealthy and located somewhere on the mainland of America.
The term Antillia is probably derived from the Portuguese
"Ante-Ilha" ("Fore-Island", "Island of the Other", or "Opposite Island"). It may be a reference to the belief that the island lay directly "opposite" from mainland Portugal (as it is usually charted), consistent with the Seven Cities story. Its size and rectangular shape is a near-mirror image of the Kingdom of Portugal
itself. Some suggest the ante-ilha etymology might be older, possibly related in meaning to the "Aprositus" ("the Inaccessible"), the name reported by Ptolemy
for one of the Fortunate Isles
.
Others regard the "ante-ilha" etymology as unsatisfactory, on the basis that "ante", in geographical usage, suggests it sits opposite another island, not a continent. As a result, alternative etymological theories of Antillia abound. One theory was that "Antillia" is merely a poorly-transcribed reference to Plato's "Atlantis
". Another is that it is a corruption of Getulia, an ancient Roman name for a geographical location in northwestern Africa. Another theory, famously forwarded by Alexander von Humboldt
is that it comes from the Arabic al-Tin or al-Tennyn, for "dragon
", a reference to the old Arab legends about sea dragons on the edge of the ocean (frequently depicted in Arab maritime charts), and that the island may have been known as Jezirat al Tennyn, or "Dragon's Isle", in Andalusian Arab legend.
One more recent hypothesis (although not finding wide acceptance), is that Antillia may mean "in front of Thule
". Sometimes written Tile, Thule was a semi-mythical reference to Iceland
, already spoken of in classical
sources. If so, then ante Tile, the "island before Thule", might very well be Ireland
, which might have had seven "cities" at the time. This theory, however, seems highly speculative. Ireland (Hibernia) was well-known and appears distinctly on all 15th C. maps.
by Europeans in the 14th century revived an interest in Atlantic island myths. With the existence of lands out in the Atlantic Ocean confirmed, 14th century European geographers began plumbing the old legends and plotting and naming many of these mythical islands on their nautical charts, alongside the new discoveries. Mythical Atlantic islands litter the early 14th century portolan charts of Pietro Vesconte
and Angelino Dulcert
.
Some historians believe the legend of Antillia was first insinuated cartographically in the 1367 portolan of the Venetian brothers Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano
. This was insinuated by an inscription (albeit with no island) on the western edge of the map, which was read by some 19th C. historians as referring to "statues on the shores of Atullia" (ante ripas Atulliae) beyond which sailors should not pass. However, later readings have suggested it should be read as the statues of Arcules (Hercules
), and that the inscription's reference is probably to the Pillars of Hercules
, the non plus ultra of ancient navigation, and not Antillia.
Antillia makes its first unambiguous appearance in the 1424 portolan chart
of Venetian
cartographer Zuane Pizzigano, as part of a group of four islands, lying far in the Atlantic Ocean some 250 leagues west of Portugal
, and 200 leagues west of the Azores
archipelago (which also usually depicted in contemporary charts). Pizzigano drew Antillia as a large, red, rectangular island, indented with bays and dotted with seven settlements, with the inscription ista ixola dixemo antilia ("this island is called antillia"). Some sixty leagues north of it is the comparable large blue Satanazes
island (ista ixolla dixemo satanazes, called Satanagio/Satanaxio/Salvagio in later maps), capped by a small umbrella-shaped Saya (called 'Tanmar' or 'Danmar' in later maps). Some twenty leagues west of Antilia is the small blue companion island of Ymana (the 'Royllo
' of later maps). These four islands will be collectively drawn together in many later 15th C. maps, with the same relative size, position and shape Pizzigano gave them in 1424. They are commonly referred to collectively as the "Antillia group" or (to use Beccario's label) the insulae de novo rep(er)te ("islands newly reported").
Cartographic appearances of Antillia (in chronological order):
As is evident, on some maps (e.g. Pareto, Soligo, Behaim), Antillia appears without Satanazes.
Significantly, although included in his map of 1436, the Antillia group is omitted in the later Andrea Bianco map of 1448, although some authors believe that two rectangular islands depicted by Bianco much further south (in the environs of Cape Verde
), and labelled merely dos ermanos ("two brothers") may be a reference to Antilia and Satanazes.
The controversial (possibly fake) Vinland map
, dated by its supporters around 1440, shows the outlines of Antillia and Satanazes islands (but not the two smaller ones) under the general label Magnae insulae Beati Brandani (great islands of St. Brendan).
Antillia (and all its companions) are conspicuously omitted in the map of Gabriel de Vallseca
(1439), the Genoese map
(1457), the Fra Mauro map
(1459) and the maps of Henricus Martellus Germanus
(1484, 1489) and Pedro Reinel
(c.1485). With a few exceptions (e.g. Ruysch), Antillia disappears from almost all known maps composed after Christopher Columbus
's voyages
to the Americas
in the 1490s (e.g. it is absent on the 1500 map
of Juan de la Cosa
, the Cantino planisphere
of 1502, etc.)
It appears in virtually all of the known surviving Portolan charts of the Atlantic—notably those of the Genoese B. Beccario or Beccaria (1435), the Venetian Andrea Bianco (1436), and Grazioso Benincasa (1476 and 1482). It is usually accompanied by the smaller and equally legendary islands of Royllo
, St Atanagio, and Tanmar, the whole group often classified as insulae de novo repertae, newly discovered islands.
On these maps, Antillia was typically depicted on a similar scale to that of Portugal, lying around 200 miles west of the Azores. It was drawn as an almost perfect rectangle, its long axis running north-south, but with seven trefoil
bays shared between the east and west coasts. Each city lay on a bay. The form of the island occasionally becomes more figurative than the semi-abstract representations of Bartolomeo de Pareto, Benincasa and others: Bianco, for instance, shifts its orientation to northwest-southeast, transmutes generic bays into river mouths (including a large one on the northeastern coast), and elongates a southern tail into a cape
with a small cluster of islets offshore.
Around the time of Spain's discovery of South America, Antillia dwindles substantially in size on Behaim's globe and later charts. Contrary to the earlier descriptions of the two island groups as distinct entities, a 16th century notion relegates Antillia to the island of São Miguel
, the largest of the Azores
, where a national park centering on two lakes still bears the name Sete Cidades
.
ish conquest of Iberia
by the Archbishop of Porto
, six other bishop
s and their parishioners to avoid the ensuing Moorish invasion. Each congregation founded a city, namely, Aira, Anhuib, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con, and once established, burnt their caravel ships as a symbol of their autonomy. The reporting of this settlement comes courtesy of a young couple who eloped back to Europe on a rare trading ship and reported the seven cities as a model of agricultural, economic and cultural harmony. Centuries later, the island became known as a proto-utopian commonwealth, free from the disorders of less favoured states.
Since these events predated the Kingdom of Portugal
and the clergy's heritage marked a claim to significant strategical gains, Spain counterclaimed that the expedition was, in fact, theirs. One of the chief early descriptions of the heritage of Antillia is inscribed on the globe which the geographer Martin Behaim
made at Nuremberg
in 1492. Behaim relates the Catholic escape from the barbarians, though his date of 734 is probably a mistake for 714. The inscription adds that a Spanish vessel sighted the island in 1414, while a Portuguese crew claimed to have landed on Antillia in the 1430s.
In a later version of the legend, the bishops fled from Mérida, Spain
, when Moors attacked it around the year 1150.
With this legend underpinning the growing reports of a bountiful civilisation midway between Europe and Cipangu, or Japan, the quest to discover the Seven Cities attracted significant attention. However, by the last decade of the 15th century, the Portuguese state's official sponsorship of such exploratory voyages had ended, and in 1492, under the Spanish flag of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus
set out on his historic journey to Asia
, citing the island as the perfect halfway house by the authority of Paul Toscanelli. Columbus had supposedly gained charts and descriptions from a Spanish navigator, who had "sojourned... and died also" at Columbus's home in Madeira, after having made landfall on Antillia.
suggested contenders in the West Indies for Antillia's heritage (most often either Puerto Rico
or Trinidad
), and as a result the Caribbean islands became known as the Antilles
. As European explorations continued in the Americas, maps reduced the scale of the island Antillia, tending to place it mid-Atlantic, whereas the Seven Cities
were attributed to mainland Central or North America, as the various European powers vied for territory in the New World.
Mukesh Ambani
, one of the richest men in the world, built an elaborate home
, completed in 2010 and valued at $1,000,000,000, and named it Antilia, after the island.
proposed a solution to the riddle of Antillia in his bestseller 1421: The Year China Discovered America. Menzies analyzed the representations of Antilla on the various pre-Columbian maps, paying special attention to the conflicting names for the "seven cities" on the various maps. In Menzies' words, after decoding of the names of the "seven cities":
Menzies goes on to claim that "these names and maps are unequivocal proof that the islands were continuously settled by the Portuguese from before 1447 until 1492, the time of Columbus's first voyage." Menzies proposes an explanation for why the old maps locate Antillia in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea, arguing that the combination of the Portuguese dead-reckoning navigation technique and the Atlantic ocean currents caused navigators to mis-calculate Antillia's location on their maps. Menzies' claims and arguments about Antillia have not been recognized by professional historians.
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
, far to the west of Portugal
Portugal
Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. The island also went by the name of Isle of Seven Cities (Ilha das Sete Cidades (Portuguese
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
), Septe Cidades).
It originates from an old Iberian
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
legend, set during the Muslim conquest of Hispania c. 714. Seeking to flee from the Muslim conquerors, seven Christian Visigothic bishops embarked with their flocks on ships and set sail westwards into the Atlantic Ocean, eventually landing on an island (Antilha) where they founded seven settlements.
The island makes its first explicit appearance as a large rectangular island in the 1424 Pizzigano Map
Pizzigano Map
The Pizzigano Map is a portolan chart dated to 1424 and attributed to the 15th C. Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano...
, a portolan chart
Portolan chart
Portolan charts are navigational maps based on realistic descriptions of harbours and coasts. They were first made in the 14th century in Italy, Portugal and Spain...
attributed to Zuane Pizzigano. Thereafter, it routinely appeared in most nautical charts of the 15th century. After 1492, when the north Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
began to be routinely sailed, and became more accurately mapped, depictions of Antillia gradually disappeared. It nonetheless lent its name to the Spanish Antilles
Antilles
The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...
.
The routine appearance of such a large "Antillia" in 15th century nautical charts has led to speculation that it might represent the American
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
landmass, and has fueled many theories of pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Theories of Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact are those theories that propose interaction between indigenous peoples of the Americas who settled the Americas before 10,000 BC, and peoples of other continents , which occurred before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean in 1492.Many...
.
Legend
Stories of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, legendary and otherwise, have been reported since classical antiquityClassical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
. Utopian tales of the Fortunate Islands (or Isles of the Blest) were sung by poets like Homer
Homer
In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...
and Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
. Plato
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
articulated the dystopian legend of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. Ancient writers like Plutarch
Plutarch
Plutarch then named, on his becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. 46 – 120 AD, was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia...
, Strabo
Strabo
Strabo, also written Strabon was a Greek historian, geographer and philosopher.-Life:Strabo was born to an affluent family from Amaseia in Pontus , a city which he said was situated the approximate equivalent of 75 km from the Black Sea...
and, more explicitly, Pliny the Elder
Pliny the Elder
Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...
and Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
, testified to the real existence of the Canary Islands. Some of their real names re-emerged as distinct mythical islands with associated legends, e.g. capraria (the island of goats) and canaria (the island of dogs) are often found on maps separately from the Canary Islands (e.g. Pizzigani brothers, 1367)
The Middle Ages saw the emergence of Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
versions of these tales. Notable among these are the Irish immram
Immram
An immram is a class of Old Irish tales concerning a hero's sea journey to the Otherworld . Written in the Christian era and essentially Christian in aspect, they preserve elements of Irish mythology....
a, such as the immram of Ui Corra, or the sea voyages of the 6th century Irish missionaries St. Brendan and St. Malo. These are the source for several legendary Atlantic islands such as St. Brendan's Island
St. Brendan's Island
Situated somewhere west of Northern Africa, St. Brendan’s Isle is a phantom island often regarded as myth, since, unless it is the so-called "Eighth Canary Island" known since time immemorial to the Spanish and Portuguese authorities as San Borondón, only a few have claimed to have seen it.In the...
and the Island of Ima. The sagas of Norse
Norsemen
Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...
seafarers to Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
and Vinland
Vinland
Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...
, notably the Grœnlendinga saga
Grœnlendinga saga
The Grœnlendinga saga is an Icelandic saga. Along with Eiríks saga rauða it is one of the two main literary sources of information for the Norse exploration of North America. It relates the colonization of Greenland by Erik the Red and his followers...
and the saga of Erik the Red, have also been influential. Norse encounters with North American indigenous peoples
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
seem to have filtered into Irish immrama.
The peoples of the Iberian peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, who were closest to the real Atlantic islands of the Canaries
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
, Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
and Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, and whose seafarers and fisherman may have seen and even visited them, articulated their own tales. Medieval Andalusian
Andalusian
The adjective Andalusian can refer to:*Andalusia, a region in Spain*Al-Andalus, a historical state on the Iberian Peninsula*Andalusian people, an ethnic group or nation in Spain centered in the Andalusia region...
Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
s related stories of Atlantic island encounters in the legend (told by al-Masudi
Al-Masudi
Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Ali al-Mas'udi , was an Arab historian and geographer, known as the "Herodotus of the Arabs." Al-Masudi was one of the first to combine history and scientific geography in a large-scale work, Muruj adh-dhahab...
) of the 9th century navigator Khashkhash
Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad
Khashkhāsh ibn Sa`īd ibn Aswad was a Moorish navigator of Islamic Iberia. According to Muslim historian Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī , Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad sailed over the Atlantic Ocean and discovered a previously unknown land...
of Cordoba and the 12th century story (told by al-Idrisi) of the eight Maghurin (Wanderers) of Lisbon.
Given the tendency of the legends of different seafarers – Greek, Norse, Irish, Arab and Iberian – to cross-fertilize and influence each other, the exact source of some legendary Atlantic islands – such as the mythical islands of Brasil and the Isle of Mam – are impossible to disentangle.
It is from Christian Iberia that the legend of Antillia emerged. According to the legend, in c. 714, during the Muslim conquest of Hispania, seven Christian bishops of Visigothic Hispania
Visigothic Kingdom
The Visigothic Kingdom was a kingdom which occupied southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to 8th century AD. One of the Germanic successor states to the Western Roman Empire, it was originally created by the settlement of the Visigoths under King Wallia in the province of...
, led by the Bishop of Porto
Roman Catholic Diocese of Porto, Portugal
The Portuguese Roman Catholic diocese of Porto is a suffragan of the archdiocese of Braga. Its see at Porto is in the Norte region, and the second largest city in Portugal.- History :...
, embarked with their parishioners on ships and set sail westward into the Atlantic Ocean to escape the Arab conquerors. They stumbled upon an island and decided to settle there, burning their ships to permanently sever their link to their now Muslim-dominated former homeland. The bishops erected seven settlements (the "Seven Cities") on the island. In one reading (from Grazioso Benincasa), the seven cities are named Aira, Antuab, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con.
The legend, in this form, is told in various places. The principal source is an inscription on Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim , was a German mariner, artist, cosmographer, astronomer, philosopher, geographer and explorer in service to the King of Portugal.-Biography:The Behaim family had immigrated to Nuremberg because of religious persecution around...
's 1492 Nuremberg globe which reads (in English translation):
The legend is also found inscribed in the 1507/08 map of Johannes Ruysch
Johannes Ruysch
Johannes Ruysch , a.k.a. Johann Ruijsch or Giovanni Ruisch was an explorer, cartographer, astronomer, manuscript illustrator and painter from the Low Countries who produced a famous map of the world: the second oldest known printed representation of the New World...
, which reads (in English):
Ruysch's inscription is reproduced almost verbatim in the Libro of Spanish historian Pedro de Medina (1548). Medina gives the island's dimensions as 87 leagues in length and 28 in width, with "many good ports and rivers", and says it is situated on the latitude
Latitude
In geography, the latitude of a location on the Earth is the angular distance of that location south or north of the Equator. The latitude is an angle, and is usually measured in degrees . The equator has a latitude of 0°, the North pole has a latitude of 90° north , and the South pole has a...
of the Straits of Gibraltar, that sailors have seen it from a distance, but disappears when they approach it.
The adjustment to the 714 date and the burning of the ships is due to Ferdinand Columbus (1539), who also reports an alleged encounter with the islanders by a Portuguese ship in the time of Henry the Navigator (c.1430s-40s). António Galvão
António Galvão
António Galvão , known in English as Antonio Galvano, was a Portuguese soldier and administrator in the Maluku islands, and a Renaissance historian, the first to present a comprehensive report of all the leading voyages and explorers up to 1550, either by Portuguese and by other nationalities...
(1563) reports that a 1447 Portuguese ship stumbled on the island, and met its (Portuguese-speaking) inhabitants, who reported they had fled there in the "time of Roderic
Roderic
Ruderic was the Visigothic King of Hispania for a brief period between 710 and 712. He is famous in legend as "the last king of the Goths"...
" and asked whether the Moors still dominated Hispania. More elaborate versions of this story have been told in more modern times.
Yet another variant of the tale is told in Manuel de Faria e Sousa
Manuel de Faria e Sousa
Manuel de Faria e Sousa was Portuguese historian and poet during the period of the Iberian Union, frequently writing in Spanish.right|thump|300px|Portrait of Manuel de Faria e Sousa in Ásia portuguesa...
(1628), of Sacaru, a Visigothic governor of Mérida
Mérida, Spain
Mérida is the capital of the autonomous community of Extremadura, western central Spain. It has a population of 57,127 . The Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993.- Climate :...
. Besieged by the Muslim armies and finding his situation hopeless, Sacaru negotiated capitulation, and proceeded, with all who wished to follow him, to embark on a fleet for exile in the Canary islands. Faria e Sousa notes they may not have reached their destination, but may have ended up instead on an Atlantic Ocean island "populated by Portuguese, that has seven cities...which some imagine to be that one which can be seen from Madeira
Madeira
Madeira is a Portuguese archipelago that lies between and , just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union...
, but when they wish to reach it, disappears".
The island is mentioned in a royal letter of King Afonso V of Portugal
Afonso V of Portugal
Afonso V KG , called the African , was the twelfth King of Portugal and the Algarves. His sobriquet refers to his conquests in Northern Africa.-Early life:...
(dated 10 November 1475), where he grants the knight Fernão Teles "the Seven Cities and any other populated islands" he might find in the western Atlantic Ocean. It is mentioned again in a royal letter (dated 24 July 1486), issued by King John II of Portugal
John II of Portugal
John II , the Perfect Prince , was the thirteenth king of Portugal and the Algarves...
at the request of Fernão Dulmo authorizing him to search for and "discover the island of Seven Cities".
Already by the 1490s, there are rumors that silver
Silver
Silver is a metallic chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal...
can be found in the island's sands. In the 16th century, the legend gave rise to the independent Spanish legends of the Seven Cities of Gold
Seven Cities of Gold
Seven Cities of Gold may refer to:* Seven Cities of Gold , seven cities in Spanish mythology* Seven Cities of Gold , starring Richard Egan * The Seven Cities of Gold , an award-winning adventure game...
, reputed by mercenary conquistadors to be fabulously wealthy and located somewhere on the mainland of America.
Etymology
Portuguese language
Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
"Ante-Ilha" ("Fore-Island", "Island of the Other", or "Opposite Island"). It may be a reference to the belief that the island lay directly "opposite" from mainland Portugal (as it is usually charted), consistent with the Seven Cities story. Its size and rectangular shape is a near-mirror image of the Kingdom of Portugal
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...
itself. Some suggest the ante-ilha etymology might be older, possibly related in meaning to the "Aprositus" ("the Inaccessible"), the name reported by Ptolemy
Ptolemy
Claudius Ptolemy , was a Roman citizen of Egypt who wrote in Greek. He was a mathematician, astronomer, geographer, astrologer, and poet of a single epigram in the Greek Anthology. He lived in Egypt under Roman rule, and is believed to have been born in the town of Ptolemais Hermiou in the...
for one of the Fortunate Isles
Fortunate Isles
In the Fortunate Isles, also called the Isles of the Blessed , heroes and other favored mortals in Greek mythology and Celtic mythology were received by the gods into a winterless blissful paradise...
.
Others regard the "ante-ilha" etymology as unsatisfactory, on the basis that "ante", in geographical usage, suggests it sits opposite another island, not a continent. As a result, alternative etymological theories of Antillia abound. One theory was that "Antillia" is merely a poorly-transcribed reference to Plato's "Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
". Another is that it is a corruption of Getulia, an ancient Roman name for a geographical location in northwestern Africa. Another theory, famously forwarded by Alexander von Humboldt
Alexander von Humboldt
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt was a German naturalist and explorer, and the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt...
is that it comes from the Arabic al-Tin or al-Tennyn, for "dragon
Dragon
A dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that feature in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern...
", a reference to the old Arab legends about sea dragons on the edge of the ocean (frequently depicted in Arab maritime charts), and that the island may have been known as Jezirat al Tennyn, or "Dragon's Isle", in Andalusian Arab legend.
One more recent hypothesis (although not finding wide acceptance), is that Antillia may mean "in front of Thule
Thule
Thule Greek: Θούλη, Thoulē), also spelled Thula, Thila, or Thyïlea, is, in classical European literature and maps, a region in the far north. Though often considered to be an island in antiquity, modern interpretations of what was meant by Thule often identify it as Norway. Other interpretations...
". Sometimes written Tile, Thule was a semi-mythical reference to Iceland
Iceland
Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...
, already spoken of in classical
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
sources. If so, then ante Tile, the "island before Thule", might very well be Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, which might have had seven "cities" at the time. This theory, however, seems highly speculative. Ireland (Hibernia) was well-known and appears distinctly on all 15th C. maps.
Cartographic representation
The rediscovery of the Canary IslandsCanary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
by Europeans in the 14th century revived an interest in Atlantic island myths. With the existence of lands out in the Atlantic Ocean confirmed, 14th century European geographers began plumbing the old legends and plotting and naming many of these mythical islands on their nautical charts, alongside the new discoveries. Mythical Atlantic islands litter the early 14th century portolan charts of Pietro Vesconte
Pietro Vesconte
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...
and Angelino Dulcert
Angelino Dulcert
Angelino Dulcert , probably also the same person known as Angelino de Dalorto , and who's real name was probably Angelino de Dulceto or Dulceti or possibly Angelí Dolcet, was an Italian-Majorcan cartographer....
.
Some historians believe the legend of Antillia was first insinuated cartographically in the 1367 portolan of the Venetian brothers Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano
Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano
Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano, known as the Pizzigani brothers, were 14th C. Venetian cartographers. Their surname is sometimes given as Pizigano in older sources.- 1367 Chart :]...
. This was insinuated by an inscription (albeit with no island) on the western edge of the map, which was read by some 19th C. historians as referring to "statues on the shores of Atullia" (ante ripas Atulliae) beyond which sailors should not pass. However, later readings have suggested it should be read as the statues of Arcules (Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
), and that the inscription's reference is probably to the Pillars of Hercules
Pillars of Hercules
The Pillars of Hercules was the phrase that was applied in Antiquity to the promontories that flank the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. The northern Pillar is the Rock of Gibraltar in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar...
, the non plus ultra of ancient navigation, and not Antillia.
Antillia makes its first unambiguous appearance in the 1424 portolan chart
Portolan chart
Portolan charts are navigational maps based on realistic descriptions of harbours and coasts. They were first made in the 14th century in Italy, Portugal and Spain...
of Venetian
Republic of Venice
The Republic of Venice or Venetian Republic was a state originating from the city of Venice in Northeastern Italy. It existed for over a millennium, from the late 7th century until 1797. It was formally known as the Most Serene Republic of Venice and is often referred to as La Serenissima, in...
cartographer Zuane Pizzigano, as part of a group of four islands, lying far in the Atlantic Ocean some 250 leagues west of Portugal
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...
, and 200 leagues west of the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
archipelago (which also usually depicted in contemporary charts). Pizzigano drew Antillia as a large, red, rectangular island, indented with bays and dotted with seven settlements, with the inscription ista ixola dixemo antilia ("this island is called antillia"). Some sixty leagues north of it is the comparable large blue Satanazes
Satanazes
The island of Satanazes is a legendary island once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean, and depicted on many 15th C. maps.- Cartographic depiction :...
island (ista ixolla dixemo satanazes, called Satanagio/Satanaxio/Salvagio in later maps), capped by a small umbrella-shaped Saya (called 'Tanmar' or 'Danmar' in later maps). Some twenty leagues west of Antilia is the small blue companion island of Ymana (the 'Royllo
Royllo
Royllo , is a legendary island that was once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean. Probably identical with the island originally called Ymana in the 1424 Pizzigano Map. The island is usually depicted in many 15th C. maps as a small island located slightly to the west of the much larger...
' of later maps). These four islands will be collectively drawn together in many later 15th C. maps, with the same relative size, position and shape Pizzigano gave them in 1424. They are commonly referred to collectively as the "Antillia group" or (to use Beccario's label) the insulae de novo rep(er)te ("islands newly reported").
Cartographic appearances of Antillia (in chronological order):
- 1424 Pizzigano MapPizzigano MapThe Pizzigano Map is a portolan chart dated to 1424 and attributed to the 15th C. Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano...
as ista ixolla dixemo antilia - 1435 map of Battista BeccarioBattista BeccarioBattista Beccario, also known as Baptista Beccharius , was a 15th Century Genoese cartographer.Virtually nothing is known of his life...
of GenoaGenoaGenoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria.... - 1436 map of Andrea Bianco of VeniceVeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
- 1455 map of Bartolomeo Pareto of Genoa - omits Satanazes
- 1463 map of Grazioso Benincasa of AnconaAnconaAncona is a city and a seaport in the Marche region, in central Italy, with a population of 101,909 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region....
- 1463 map of Pedro Roselli of Majorca.
- 1466 map of Pedro Roselli
- 1468 map of Pedro Roselli
- 1460s anonymous Weimar mapWeimar mapThe Weimar map is an anonymous 15th C. 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...
(attrib. to Conte di Ottomano Freducci of Ancona) - labelled as septe civit - 1470 map of Grazioso Benincasa
- c. 1475 map of Cristoforo Soligo of Venice - omits Satanazes, Antillia labelled as y de sete zitade
- 1474 "map" of Paolo Toscanelli - map missing, but Antilia referenced in letter.
- 1476 map of Andrea Benincasa of Ancona (son of Grazioso) - omits Satanazes
- 1480 map of Albino de Canepa of Venice
- 1482 map of Grazioso Benincasa
- c.1482 map of Grazioso Benincasa (different from above)
- 1482 map of Jacme Bertran of Majorca
- 1487 map of anonymous Majorcan cartographer
- 1489 map of Albino de Canepa
- 1492 Nuremberg globe of Martin BehaimMartin BehaimMartin Behaim , was a German mariner, artist, cosmographer, astronomer, philosopher, geographer and explorer in service to the King of Portugal.-Biography:The Behaim family had immigrated to Nuremberg because of religious persecution around...
- omits Satanazes, first with inscription relating legend. - 1493 anonymous Laon globe
- c. 1500 Paris map ("Columbus map") of anonymous Poruguese/Genoese (?) cartographer.
- 1507-08 map of Johannes RuyschJohannes RuyschJohannes Ruysch , a.k.a. Johann Ruijsch or Giovanni Ruisch was an explorer, cartographer, astronomer, manuscript illustrator and painter from the Low Countries who produced a famous map of the world: the second oldest known printed representation of the New World...
- relocates Satanazes to Isle of DemonsIsle of DemonsThe Isle of Demons is a legendary land once believed to exist near Newfoundland. It was generally shown as two islands. It began appearing on maps in the beginning of the 16th century, and disappeared in the mid-17th century....
(?), relates legend.
As is evident, on some maps (e.g. Pareto, Soligo, Behaim), Antillia appears without Satanazes.
Significantly, although included in his map of 1436, the Antillia group is omitted in the later Andrea Bianco map of 1448, although some authors believe that two rectangular islands depicted by Bianco much further south (in the environs of Cape Verde
Cape Verde
The Republic of Cape Verde is an island country, spanning an archipelago of 10 islands located in the central Atlantic Ocean, 570 kilometres off the coast of Western Africa...
), and labelled merely dos ermanos ("two brothers") may be a reference to Antilia and Satanazes.
The controversial (possibly fake) Vinland map
Vinland map
The Vinland map is claimed to be a 15th century mappa mundi with unique information about Norse exploration of America. It is very well known because of the publicity campaign which accompanied its revelation to the public as a "genuine" pre-Columbian map in 1965...
, dated by its supporters around 1440, shows the outlines of Antillia and Satanazes islands (but not the two smaller ones) under the general label Magnae insulae Beati Brandani (great islands of St. Brendan).
Antillia (and all its companions) are conspicuously omitted in the map of Gabriel de Vallseca
Gabriel de Vallseca
Gabriel de Vallseca, also referred to as Gabriel de Valseca and Gabriel de Valsequa was a Catalan cartographer of Jewish descent connected to the Majorcan cartographic school...
(1439), the Genoese map
Genoese map
The Genoese map is a 1457 world map. The map relied extensively on the account of the traveler to Asia Niccolo da Conti, rather than the usual source of Marco Polo. The author is not known, but is a more modern development than the Fra Mauro world map, with fairly good proportions given to each...
(1457), the Fra Mauro map
Fra Mauro map
The Fra Mauro map, "considered the greatest memorial of medieval cartography" according to Roberto Almagià, is a map made around 1450 by the Venetian monk Fra Mauro...
(1459) and the maps of Henricus Martellus Germanus
Henricus Martellus Germanus
Henricus Martellus Germanus is the latinized name of Heinrich Hammer, a German cartographer who lived and worked in Florence from 1480 to 1496....
(1484, 1489) and Pedro Reinel
Pedro Reinel
Pedro Reinel was a Portuguese cartographer of the 16th century, author of one of the oldest signed Portuguese nautical chart . That is a portolan type of chart, covering western Europe and part of Africa, and already reflecting the explorations made by Diogo Cão in 1482-1485. With his son Jorge...
(c.1485). With a few exceptions (e.g. Ruysch), Antillia disappears from almost all known maps composed after Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
's voyages
Voyages of Christopher Columbus
In the early modern period, the voyages of Columbus initiated European exploration and colonization of the American continents, and are thus of great significance in world history. Christopher Columbus was a navigator and an admiral for Castile, a country that later founded modern Spain...
to the Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...
in the 1490s (e.g. it is absent on the 1500 map
Map of Juan de la Cosa
The map or chart of Juan de la Cosa is a mappa mundi painted on parchment, 93 cm high and 183 cm wide, currently preserved at the Museo Naval of Madrid . A line of text on the map says it was made by cartographer and sailor Juan de la Cosa in 1500 in the Andalusian port city of Puerto de Santa...
of Juan de la Cosa
Juan de la Cosa
Juan de la Cosa was a Spanish cartographer, conquistador and explorer. He made the earliest extant European world map to incorporate the territories of the Americas that were discovered in the 15th century, sailed first 3 voyages with Christopher Columbus, and was the owner/captain of the Santa...
, the Cantino planisphere
Cantino planisphere
The Cantino planisphere is the earliest surviving map showing Portuguese Discoveries in the east and west. It is named after Alberto Cantino, an agent for the Duke of Ferrara, who successfully smuggled it from Portugal to Italy in 1502...
of 1502, etc.)
It appears in virtually all of the known surviving Portolan charts of the Atlantic—notably those of the Genoese B. Beccario or Beccaria (1435), the Venetian Andrea Bianco (1436), and Grazioso Benincasa (1476 and 1482). It is usually accompanied by the smaller and equally legendary islands of Royllo
Royllo
Royllo , is a legendary island that was once thought to be located in the Atlantic Ocean. Probably identical with the island originally called Ymana in the 1424 Pizzigano Map. The island is usually depicted in many 15th C. maps as a small island located slightly to the west of the much larger...
, St Atanagio, and Tanmar, the whole group often classified as insulae de novo repertae, newly discovered islands.
On these maps, Antillia was typically depicted on a similar scale to that of Portugal, lying around 200 miles west of the Azores. It was drawn as an almost perfect rectangle, its long axis running north-south, but with seven trefoil
Trefoil
Trefoil is a graphic form composed of the outline of three overlapping rings used in architecture and Christian symbolism...
bays shared between the east and west coasts. Each city lay on a bay. The form of the island occasionally becomes more figurative than the semi-abstract representations of Bartolomeo de Pareto, Benincasa and others: Bianco, for instance, shifts its orientation to northwest-southeast, transmutes generic bays into river mouths (including a large one on the northeastern coast), and elongates a southern tail into a cape
Cape (geography)
In geography, a cape or headland is a point or body of land extending into a body of water, usually the sea.A cape usually represents a marked change in trend of the coastline. Their proximity to the coastline makes them prone to natural forms of erosion, mainly tidal actions. This results in capes...
with a small cluster of islets offshore.
São Miguel Island
São Miguel Island , nicknamed "The Green Island", is the largest and most populous island in the Portuguese Azores archipelago. The island covers and has around 140,000 inhabitants, 45,000 of these people located in the largest city in the archipelago: Ponta Delgada.-History:In 1427, São Miguel...
, the largest of the Azores
Azores
The Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
, where a national park centering on two lakes still bears the name Sete Cidades
Sete Cidades
Sete Cidades is also national park in the state of Piauí, Brazil, see Sete Cidades, PiauíSete Cidades is a civil parish in the center of the municipality of Ponta Delgada, that is likewise located in the center of a massive volcanic crater three miles across, also referred to as Sete Cidades...
.
Medieval beliefs and the Age of Discovery
A Portuguese legend tells how the island was settled in the early eighth century in the face of the MoorMoors
The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...
ish conquest of Iberia
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
by the Archbishop of Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, six other bishop
Bishop
A bishop is an ordained or consecrated member of the Christian clergy who is generally entrusted with a position of authority and oversight. Within the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox Churches, in the Assyrian Church of the East, in the Independent Catholic Churches, and in the...
s and their parishioners to avoid the ensuing Moorish invasion. Each congregation founded a city, namely, Aira, Anhuib, Ansalli, Ansesseli, Ansodi, Ansolli and Con, and once established, burnt their caravel ships as a symbol of their autonomy. The reporting of this settlement comes courtesy of a young couple who eloped back to Europe on a rare trading ship and reported the seven cities as a model of agricultural, economic and cultural harmony. Centuries later, the island became known as a proto-utopian commonwealth, free from the disorders of less favoured states.
Since these events predated the Kingdom of Portugal
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...
and the clergy's heritage marked a claim to significant strategical gains, Spain counterclaimed that the expedition was, in fact, theirs. One of the chief early descriptions of the heritage of Antillia is inscribed on the globe which the geographer Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim
Martin Behaim , was a German mariner, artist, cosmographer, astronomer, philosopher, geographer and explorer in service to the King of Portugal.-Biography:The Behaim family had immigrated to Nuremberg because of religious persecution around...
made at Nuremberg
Nuremberg
Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...
in 1492. Behaim relates the Catholic escape from the barbarians, though his date of 734 is probably a mistake for 714. The inscription adds that a Spanish vessel sighted the island in 1414, while a Portuguese crew claimed to have landed on Antillia in the 1430s.
In a later version of the legend, the bishops fled from Mérida, Spain
Mérida, Spain
Mérida is the capital of the autonomous community of Extremadura, western central Spain. It has a population of 57,127 . The Archaeological Ensemble of Mérida is a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1993.- Climate :...
, when Moors attacked it around the year 1150.
With this legend underpinning the growing reports of a bountiful civilisation midway between Europe and Cipangu, or Japan, the quest to discover the Seven Cities attracted significant attention. However, by the last decade of the 15th century, the Portuguese state's official sponsorship of such exploratory voyages had ended, and in 1492, under the Spanish flag of Ferdinand and Isabella, Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...
set out on his historic journey to Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, citing the island as the perfect halfway house by the authority of Paul Toscanelli. Columbus had supposedly gained charts and descriptions from a Spanish navigator, who had "sojourned... and died also" at Columbus's home in Madeira, after having made landfall on Antillia.
Later influence
Others following d'AnghieraPeter Martyr d'Anghiera
Peter Martyr d'Anghiera was an Italian-born historian of Spain and its discoveries during the Age of Exploration...
suggested contenders in the West Indies for Antillia's heritage (most often either Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
or Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
), and as a result the Caribbean islands became known as the Antilles
Antilles
The Antilles islands form the greater part of the West Indies in the Caribbean Sea. The Antilles are divided into two major groups: the "Greater Antilles" to the north and west, including the larger islands of Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola , and Puerto Rico; and the smaller "Lesser Antilles" on the...
. As European explorations continued in the Americas, maps reduced the scale of the island Antillia, tending to place it mid-Atlantic, whereas the Seven Cities
Seven Cities of Gold (myth)
The Seven Cities of Gold is a myth that led to several expeditions by adventurers and conquistadors in the 16th century. It also featured in several works of popular culture.-Origins of myth:...
were attributed to mainland Central or North America, as the various European powers vied for territory in the New World.
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Ambani
Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani is an Indian business magnate. He is the chairman and managing director of Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries, the largest private sector enterprise in India listed in Fortune 500 magazine. His personal stake in Reliance Industries is 48%...
, one of the richest men in the world, built an elaborate home
Antilia (building)
Antilia is the name of a twenty-seven floor personal home in South Mumbai belonging to businessman Mukesh Ambani, the billionaire Chairman of Reliance Industries...
, completed in 2010 and valued at $1,000,000,000, and named it Antilia, after the island.
Gavin Menzies' solution
The controversial author Gavin MenziesGavin Menzies
Rowan Gavin Paton Menzies is a retired British submarine lieutenant-commander and author. He is best known for his controversial book 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, in which he asserts that the fleets of Chinese Admiral Zheng He visited the Americas prior to European explorer...
proposed a solution to the riddle of Antillia in his bestseller 1421: The Year China Discovered America. Menzies analyzed the representations of Antilla on the various pre-Columbian maps, paying special attention to the conflicting names for the "seven cities" on the various maps. In Menzies' words, after decoding of the names of the "seven cities":
Menzies goes on to claim that "these names and maps are unequivocal proof that the islands were continuously settled by the Portuguese from before 1447 until 1492, the time of Columbus's first voyage." Menzies proposes an explanation for why the old maps locate Antillia in the Atlantic Ocean rather than the Caribbean Sea, arguing that the combination of the Portuguese dead-reckoning navigation technique and the Atlantic ocean currents caused navigators to mis-calculate Antillia's location on their maps. Menzies' claims and arguments about Antillia have not been recognized by professional historians.
Sources
- Babcock, W.H. (1920) "Antillia and the Antilles", The Geographical Journal, vol. 9 (2), p. 109-24.
- Babcock, W.H. (1922) Legendary islands of the Atlantic: a study in medieval geography New York: American Geographical Society. online
- Barreto, M. (1988) O português Cristóvão Colombo, 1992 trans. as The Portuguese Columbus: secret agent of King John II. New York: Macmillan.
- Beazley, C.R. (1897–1906) The Dawn of Modern Geography. London. vol. 1 (-900), vol.2 (900-1260) vol. 3 (1260–1420)
- Beazley, C. (1899) Raymond "Introduction" in C.R. Beazley and E. Prestage, 1898–99, The Chronicle of the Discovery and Conquest of Guinea, London: Halyut. v.2
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(1563) Tratado que compôs o nobre & notauel capitão Antonio Galuão, dos diuersos & desuayrados caminhos, por onde nos tempos passados a pimenta & especearia veyo da India às nossas partes, & assi de todos os descobrimentos antigos & modernos, que são feitos até a era de 1550, Lisbon (trans. R. Hakluyt, 1601, as The Discoveries of the World from Their First Original Unto the Year of Our Lord 1555. 1862 edition, London: Hakluyt online)
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