An Antillia of the Mainland
Again, at a much later time, when the exploration of the South American coast line had proceeded far enough to demonstrate the existence of a continent, some one speculated, it would seem, concerning an Antillia of the mainland. One of the maps[248] in the portolan atlas in the British Museum known as Egerton MS. 2803 bears the word “Antiglia” running from north to south at a considerable distance west of the mouth of the Amazon, apparently about where would now be the southeastern part of Venezuela. Also, the world map[249] in the same atlas ([Fig. 8]) bears “Antiglia” as a South American name, in this instance moved farther westward to the region of eastern Ecuador and neighboring territory.
But these aberrant applications of the name Antillia in its various forms were mostly late in time and probably all suggested by some novel geographical disclosures. The standard identification, as disclosed on the maps discussed below, at least from Beccario’s of 1435 to Benincasa’s of 1482, was with a great group of western islands; as was Peter Martyr’s, much later.