Dalorto’s map, 1325
The type which is first known from Angellino Dalorto’s map of 1325 (or 1330 ?), and from that of 1339 signed Angellino Dulcert, which is undoubtedly by the same man, was of fundamental importance to the representation of the North on the Catalan compass-charts. It has been thought that he belonged to a well-known Genoese family named Dalorto, and that the first map was drawn in Italy, while the latter was certainly drawn in Majorca, either by a copyist who corrupted the name of Dalorto to Dulcert, or by himself, who in that case must be supposed to have given his name a more Catalan sound on settling in Majorca. But in any case these maps had Italian models; this appears clearly in the form of the names [cf. Kretschmer, 1909, pp. 118, f.].
The two maps are much alike. The oldest, of 1325 (1330 ?),[220] gives a more complete representation of the North and of the Baltic than any earlier map known (see illustration). In its names it shows a connection both with Carignano’s map and with Marino Sanudo, but new names and fresh information have been added, the delineation of Great Britain and Ireland is more correct, and there is also a more reasonable representation of Scandinavia and of the extent of the Baltic than on Carignano’s map. Amongst new names in the North may be mentioned “trunde” [Trondhjem, cf. “Throndemia” in the Historia Norwegiæ], and “alogia” for a town on the west side of Norway; this is evidently Halogia [Hálogaland], a form of the name which was used, for instance, in the Historia Norwegiæ and by Saxo. Another name in the far north, and again at the south-western extremity of Norway, is “alolandia” (see illustration, [p. 226]). One might suppose that the form of the name and its assignment to these two places are due to a confusion of the name Hálogaland with Hallandia (in Saxo) and “alandia” on the Sanudo-Vesconte map (see [p. 224]).
It will be seen that Norway, which is represented as a pronouncedly mountainous country,[221] has on this map been given a great increase of breadth, so that its west coast is brought to the same longitude as the west coast of Great Britain. In the legends attached to Norway we read that from its deserts are brought “birds called gilfalcos” (hunting falcons), and in the extreme north is the inscription:
“Here the people live by hunting the beasts of the forest, and also on fish, on account of the price of corn which is very dear. Here are white bears and many animals.”
The substance of this may be derived in the main from the Geographia Universalis (cf. [pp. 189, f.]; see also [p. 177]). Islands in the ocean to the west of Norway are: farthest north, “Insula ornaya” [the Orkneys]; farther south, “sialand” [Shetland, “Insula scetiland” on the map of 1339, and “silland” or “stillanda” on later maps]. The resemblance to “shâsland,” the name of an island in Edrisi (cf. above, [p. 207]), is great, but it cannot be supposed that we have here a corruption of Iceland. At the north-eastern corner of Scotland is the round island, “Insula tille” (cf. [p. 219]).
The Isle of Brazil
In the ocean to the west of Ireland we find for the first time on this map an island called “Insula de montonis siue de brazile.” This island is met with again on later compass-charts under the name of “brazil” as late as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.[222] It is evidently the Irish fortunate isle “Hy Breasail,” afterwards called “O’Brazil,” that has found its way on to this map, or probably on to the unknown older sources from which it is drawn. On this and the oldest of the later maps the island has a strikingly round form, often divided by a channel.
The Irish myth of Hy Breasail, or Bresail,[223] the island out in the Atlantic (cf. vol. i. p. 357), is evidently very ancient; the island is one of the many happy lands like “Tír Tairngiri” [the promised land]. In the opinion of Moltke Moe and Alf Torp the name may come from the Irish “bress” [good fortune, prosperity], and would thus be absolutely the same as the Insulæ Fortunatæ. The Italians may easily have become acquainted with this myth through the Irish monasteries in North Italy, unless indeed they had it through their sailors, and in this way the island came upon the map. The form “brazil” may have arisen through the cartographer connecting the name with the valuable brazil-wood, used for dyeing. The channel dividing the island of Brazil on the maps may be the river which in the legend of Brandan ran through the island called “Terra Repromissionis,” and which Brandan (in the Navigatio) was not able to cross. It is probably the river of death (Styx), and possibly the same that became the river at Hop in the Icelandic saga of Wineland (see vol. i. p. 359). We thus find here again a possible connection, and this strengthens the probability that Brazil was the Promised Land of the Irish, which on the other hand helped to form Wineland.
On later compass-charts several isles of Brazil came into existence. As early as in the Medici Atlas (1351) an “Insula de brazi” appears farther south in the ocean, to the west of Spain, and on the Pizigano map (1367) and the Soleri map (1385) there is to the west of Brittany yet a third “brazir,” afterwards commonly called “de manj,” or “maidas,” etc.[224] The name “Insula de montonis” is difficult to understand. If we may believe it to be an error for “moltonis” (or perhaps “moutonis,” a latinisation of the French “mouton” ?), it might mean the sheep island of the Navigatio Brandani, which was originally Dicuil’s Faroes (cf. vol. i. p. 362). Thus this name also carries us to Ireland.[225]