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70 ISLAND OF THE SEVEN CITIES


The name Antillia had appeared on the maps much earlier. As Atilae, or Atulae, it is doubtfully found in an inscription on that of the Pizigani (1367 ; 7 Fig. 2), identifying a "shore," not drawn, on which a colossal statue of warning had been erected. The location seems to be somewhere in the region where Corvo of the Azores should appear. We meet the island name, for the first time unmistakably, on the map of Beccario (Becharius) of 1435* (Fig. 20). It is ap- plied to the chief of a group of four large islands, comparable to nothing actually in the western Atlantic except the Greater An- tilles, or three of them with Florida (Bimini). They are collec- tively designated "Insulle a Novo Repte" the "Newly Reported Islands." Antillia itself is shown as an elongated quadrilateral having its sides indented by seven two-lobed bays of identical form, beside another and larger bay in the southern end. Several subsequent maps repeat the delineation with little change, and the map of Benincasa (1482; Fig. 22) supplies local names for the bays or the regions adjoining excepting only the lowest but one on the eastern side, which bay is opposite the middle of the island name Antillia. The other names as read by Dr. Kretsch- mer are Aira, Ansalli, Ansodi, Con, Anhuib, Ansesseli, and An- solli. It will be observed that five of them borrow the first sylla- ble of Antillia. Nobody has explained these names, and they seem mere products of linguistic fancy. But again the coincidence in number is impressive, although somewhat offset by the fact that the next largest island in the group, Saluaga, has a similar ar- in Possession of His Catholic Majesty. Written by His Own Son, transl. from the Italian and contained in "A Collection of Voyages and Travels, Some Now First Printed from Original Manuscripts, Others Now First Published in English," by Awnsham Churchill and John Churchill (6 vols., London, 1732), Vol. 2, pp. 501- 628; reference on p. 512. 7 [E. F.] Jomard: Les monuments de la geographic, ou recueil d'anciennes cartes europeennes et orientales Paris, [1842-62], PI. X, i. 8 Gustavo Uzielli: Mappamondi, carte nautiche e portolani del medioevo e dei secoli delle grandi scoperte marittime construiti da italiani o trovati nelle biblio- teche d'ltalia. Part II (pp. 280-390) of "Studi Bibliografici e Biografici sulla Storia della Geografia in Italia," published on the occasion of the Second International Geographical Congress, Paris, i8?5.by the Societa Geografica Italiana, Rome, 1875; reference on PI. 8 (the second edition, Rome, 1882, does not contain the plates). Kretschmer, atlas, PI. 4, map i.