The cartographer Henricus Martellus, who succeeded Nicolaus Germanus, again adopted Clavus’s form of Greenland, wholly or in part, on his maps dating from about 1490.
In this way there arose on the maps of the close of the Middle Ages two types of the North: one with Greenland in a comparatively correct position to the west of Iceland, though far too near Europe and connected therewith, and another type with “Engronelant” as a peninsula to the north of Norway. The latter remained for a long time the usual one in all editions of Ptolemy, in other cartographical works and on many globes. After the rediscovery of Greenland we even get sometimes two delineations of this country on the same map, one to the north of Norway and the other in its right place in the west.
Illa verde
Greenland seems to have been given a wholly different form on a Catalan compass-chart from Majorca, of the close of the fifteenth century, where in the Atlantic to the west of Ireland and south-west of Iceland [“Fixlanda”] there is an island called “Illa verde” [the green isle]. It seems, as assumed by Storm [1893, p. 81], that the name must be a translation of Greenland, which is called in the Historia Norwegiæ “Viridis terra.” The representation of Iceland [“Fixlanda”] on this map is incomparably better than on all earlier maps, and gives proof of new information having come from thence. As the place-names point to an English source, it is possible that the cartographer may have received information from Bristol, which city was engaged in the Iceland trade and fisheries, and his island, “Illa verde,” may be due to an echo of reports about the forgotten Greenland in the west. It is worth remarking that the island is connected with the Irish mythical “Illa de brazil,” which lay to the west of Ireland and which appears in this map twice over in its typical round form (cf. above, [p. 228]).[271] If we remember that this happy isle is in reality the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and that in the Historia Norwegiæ (see above, [p. 1]) it is said that Greenland [“Viridis terra”] nearly touches the African Islands (i.e., Insulæ Fortunatæ), then we possibly have an explanation of this juxtaposition. But as it is said in the same passage that Greenland forms the western end of Europe, we cannot suppose that the cartographer was acquainted with this work. The probability is, no doubt, that Greenland [Illa verde] together with Brazil or the Insulæ Fortunatæ had become transformed into mythical islands out in the ocean.
Part of a Catalan compass-chart of the fifteenth century,
preserved at Milan. (Nordenskiöld, 1892, Pl. 5)
On another compass-chart, bound up in a Paris MS. of Ptolemy of the latter part of the fifteenth century, a similar island (or peninsula ?), with the same round island to the south of it, is seen to project southwards from the northern border of the chart out into the Atlantic, and a little farther east than the Insulæ Fortunatæ. On the island is written: “Insula uiridis, de qua fit mentio in geographia” [the green island, of which mention is made in the geography].[272] We do not know what geographical work may here be meant; Björnbo suggests that it might be the lost work of Nicholas of Lynn, who again may have used the Historia Norwegiæ. It is striking that the island, besides being connected with a round island like Brazil, but without a name, is placed on this map near the Insulæ Fortunatæ.
This “green island,” which thus is probably a remnant of old Greenland, occurs again in various forms and in various places on many sixteenth-century maps.
Lascaris’s journey to Norway and Iceland, fifteenth century
It is not surprising that information about the northern lands made its appearance also on the maps of this time, as we know that the North was visited more frequently, and sometimes by eminent southerners, from the year 1248, when the well-known Matthew Paris, who, amongst other things, drew a map of England remarkable for his time, visited Norway. Rather is it strange that the direct knowledge thus obtained did not leave more definite traces. Early in the fifteenth century (some year between 1397 and 1448) a Byzantine, Cananos Lascaris, travelled in the North and wrote about it (in Greek). He mentions amongst other things that in Bergen, the capital of Norway (“Bergen Vagen”), money was not used in trading [this must have been due to scarcity of coin]; but in Stockolmo, the capital of Sweden, they had money of alloyed silver. Bergen had a month of daylight from June 24 to July 25. He also says that he himself went to the land of the Ichthyophagi (fish-eaters), “Islanta,” from “Inglenia,” and stayed there for twenty-four days. The people were strong and powerfully built, they lived only on fish, and they had a summer day of six months [cf. Lampros, 1881].