The second cartographical appearance of the saint’s name seems to be in the portolan map[53] of Angelinus Dulcert, the Majorcan, dated 1339, where three islands corresponding to those now known as the Madeiras (Madeira, Porto Santo, and Las Dezertas) and on the same site are labeled “Insulle Sa Brandani siue puelan.” Since “u” was currently substituted for “v,” and “m” and “n” were interchangeable on these old maps, the last two words should probably be read “sive puellam.” However the ending of the inscription be interpreted, there can be no doubt about St. Brendan and his title to the islands—according to Dulcert. And that this island group must be identified with Madeira and her consorts (though Madeira is named Capraria and Porto Santo is named Primaria) hardly admits of any question.
If the identification of them with the Fortunate Islands especially favored by St. Brendan were no more than a conjecture of Dulcert or some predecessor, it still had a certain plausibility from the facts of nature and the favorable report of antiquity. Strabo may have borne these islands in mind when he wrote: “the golden apples of the Hesperides, the Islands of the Blessed they speak of, which we know are still pointed out to us not far distant from the extremities of Maurusia, and opposite to Gades.”[54] Apparently, too, Diodorus Siculus, writing half a century or so before the Christian era about what happened a thousand years earlier still, means Madeira by the “great island of very mild and healthful climate” and “in great part mountainous but much likewise champaign, which is the most sweet and pleasant part of all the rest;”[55] whereto the Phoenicians were storm-driven after founding Cadiz and which the Etrurians coveted but the Carthaginians planned to hold for themselves. Even since those old days there has been a general recognition of Madeira’s balminess and slumberous, flowery, enticing beauty.
The Map of the Pizigani of 1367
Divers maps of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries do not contain the name of St. Brendan (it is perhaps never spelled Brendan in cartography) and hence do not count either way. But the identification of the notable map of 1367 of the brothers Pizigani[56] ([Fig. 2]) is the same as Dulcert’s, the inscription being also given in the alternative. Like many oceanic features of this strange production it is by no means clear, but seems to read “Ysole dctur sommare sey ysole pone+le brandany.” Perhaps it is to be understood as the “islands called of slumber or the islands of St. Brandan.” There is at any rate no doubt about the last word or its meaning. But, as if to place the matter beyond all question, a monkish figure, generally accepted as that of the saint himself, is depicted bending over them in an attitude of benediction.
This map evidently does not copy from Dulcert, for the forms, proportions, and individual names of the islands all differ. It calls the chief island Canaria, instead of Capraria or the later Madeira, and appends a longer name, which seems like Capirizia, to what have long been known as Las Dezertas, which appear greatly enlarged on it. Porto Santo is left unnamed on the map, perhaps because it lies so close to the general name of the group.
First Use of “Porto Santo” as Name of One of the Madeiras
A claim has been set up by the Portuguese that Porto Santo (Holy Port) was first applied to this island by their rediscoverers of the next century in honor of their safe arrival after peril, but this is abundantly confuted by its presence on divers fourteenth-century maps, notably the Atlante Mediceo[57] of 1351. Also the Book of the Spanish Friar,[58] dating from about the middle of that century, contains in his enumeration of islands the words “another Desierta, another Lecname, another Puerto Santo.” It would seem to have been a familiar appellation about 1350 or earlier, and the suggestion naturally occurs that it may have originated in the tradition of the visit and blessing of the Irish saint. At any rate, the Portuguese, in the fifteenth-century rediscovery, can have had nothing to do with conferring it.
Animal and Bird Names of Islands
Concerning such names as Canaria, Capraria, etc., which, by reason of other associations, appear oddly out of place in this group, the more general question is raised of the tendency to apply animal and bird names to Eastern Atlantic islands. Goat, rabbit, dog, falcon, dove, wolf, and crow were applied to various islands long before the Portuguese visited the Madeiras and Azores, finding them untenanted; these names long held their ground on the maps, and some of them are in use even now. The reason for their adoption piques one’s curiosity. If they could be taken as throwing any light on the fauna of these islands in 1350, they might also instruct us as to the probability of prior human occupancy or previous connection with the mainland. But, of course, in any significant instances some fancied resemblance of aspect may have suggested the name.