As mentioned in a previous post, Brazil, in South America, was officialy discovered by chance, by the Portuguese navigator Cabral in the year 1500 AD, eight years after Columbus discovered America. However, several authors in the 1800s and 1900s have suggested that the Portuguese knew about Brazil's existence from much earlier, and in an interesting twist it has a link with the story of St. Brendan mentioned in yesterday's post.
In the Historia de la Nación Argentina, Vol 2, p. 355, published in 1936, Max Fleiuss wrote about the discovery of Brazil and included the following comments a letter written by Master John (Maese Juan), to the King of Portugal informing him of the discovery of Brazil, he wrote it in Vera Cruz, an island, where Cabral landed in 1500:
"This letter, dated like that of the scribe of the Calcutta trading post, in Veracruz on May 1, 1500, was found by Varnhagen in the archives of the Torre do Tombo and published in the Revista del Instituto Histórica Brasileira in 1843. The following paragraph perfectly elucidates the question of the prior knowledge that the Portuguese discoverers had of Brazil: «As for the location of this land, Your Highness should order a world map to be drawn, which Pero Vaz Bisagudo has, and in this way Your Highness will be able to see the location of this land.»
That planisphere by Pero Vaz de Cunha, the Bisagudo, is one of the oldest, as Master Juan points out to the king; and it was traced on the "Portuguese Map of the Vatican Secret Archives" of 1343. Emperor Charles V of France ordered it to be reproduced in 1375 by one of the most skilled Spanish cartographers from Majorca and ordered it to be corrected and enlarged according to the explorations made from that year 1343 onwards. A copy of it is now in the National Library of Paris."
Maese Joao is telling the king to look at the map owned by Pero Vaz de Cunha known as The Bisagudo, one of his navigators and officers. Bisagudo as a nickname referred to Pero Vaz de Cunha's shap features, from the Portuguese words viso agudo, acute face. He had been sent by King John II of Portugal to build a fortress in Senegal, Africa, but the mission took a nasty turn involving Pero executing one of his comrades. The Crown never again required his services after this. (Source) another reference says his nickname was due to his cunning and sharp intelligence.
The letter of Maese Joao says that an ancient map from 1343, showed where Brazil was located.
Max Fleiuss then adds that the map was traced from the secret Vatican files, and also copied in 1375 by the French King, Charles V, and that a copy can be found in the French National Library in Paris!
Fleiuss continues (highlight is mine, because Sancho Brandão, is, as we will see further down, linked by his same-sounding name, to St. Brendan).
"On February 12, 1343, during the reign of Alfonso IV, the Valiant, son of King Dinis, in Portugal, he informed Pope Clement VI, in a letter written from Montemayor-el-Novo (Vatican Archives), that Captain Sancho Brandão had reached a land he believed to be an island and that he was taking wild animals, livestock, and brazilwood back to Lisbon, and that he had had it surveyed by several ships. On maps from the 15th and 16th centuries, the legend "Isla de Brandam" [Brandam's Island] is also applied to "Isla del Brasil." [Brazil Island] This island appeared in the Medici Atlas as early as 1351.
Capistrano de Abreu tells us that some medieval maps give the name to a single island, in the shape of a perfectly regular circle... or in the shape of a crescent moon; others give the name to two semicircular islands separated by a strait. In Pisigano's map of 1367, there are three Bracir islands. Nenrod Krestalimer, in his study of medieval maps, found the word Brazil written with the following variants: Brazí, Braciri, Brazil, Brasiel. Brasil, Brazile, Braziele, Braziel, Bracil, Bracill, Bcrsill, Braxil, Braxiili, Braxiel, Braxyiili and Brigilge.
On the map of Charles V [the one mentioned further up, from 1375] and on the world map of Banulph Hyggeden, designed in 1360 (British Museum, London), that island has more or less the same shape as it does on the map of Bisagudo; an island that is still found on the geographical charts of Nicoló Zeno (1380), of Becario (1435) and of André Bianco, original of 1436 and copy of 1448. In the latter, it includes the legend according to which its maritime distance from the Cape Verde archipelago is calculated at 1500 miles, or approximately the distance between Cape Verde and Cape St. Augustine.[more on Bianco's map further down]
In addition, this information appears in Paulo Toscanelli's letter. Furthermore, on Martin Behaim's globe, dated 1487, the "Island of Sancho Brandõo or Brazil" is marked. This astronomer and cartographer from Nuremberg resided for a long time in Lisbon and died there in 1507. Sancho Brandõo, captain of the 1343 expedition, would therefore be, chronologically, the original discoverer of Brazil.
Among the autographs that belonged to Lord Charles Stuart's archive, there was found the letter from Pedro Alvarez to Dom Manuel in which he announced, along with the scribe, the astronomer, and all the ship commanders, the discovery of the Brazilian land. These letters were sent by the vessel under the command of Gaspar de Lemos. Cabral addresses the king in the following passage: «Obeying Your Highness’s instructions, we sailed west, and took possession, with authentic title, of Your Highness’s land, which the ancients called Brandam or Brazil» (Torre do Tombo Archive, Lord Stuart Archive Register).
Renowned authors, such as Luciano Pereira, Faustino da Fonseca, Lopes de Mendonga, Brito Rebello, Jayme Cortezão, Capistrano de Abreu, João Ribeiro, Pandiá Calogeras, Rodolfo García, and the American Henry Vignaud, considered one of Columbus’s best biographers, acknowledge that Duarte Pacheco Pereira was Cabral’s predecessor."
Andrea Bianco's Map
Plenty has been written about Bianco's maps. See this excellent reproduction of the 1436 map (Zoomable), in it, Brazil Island can be seen west of Portugal, at the latitude of Cape St. Vincent in southern Portugal, half way across the ocean towards Antillia Island (the map has the text upside down, rotate it to read some of the names). Regarding the 1448 map you can see it here, also zoomable (requires free registration to view). Below is a copy of it, from Fleiuss' article. His original caption is included.
The map shows Cape Verde (the two points on the right), two islands, Dos Ermanes Islands (Two Brothers? Islands, which probably depict the Cape Verde Islands), and on the lower left side, cut by the end of the parchment is a piece of land, possibly an island, or the coast of some continental area, with a rather illegible text written in ancient Venetian. This text has been interpreted in many different ways, as we will see below
Bianco's Text
Below is a detail of Bianco's 1448 map, showing the text written on the island Source. The upper line gives the name of the island, the bottom line its location.
Fleiuss says the inscriptian reads "Authenticated Island, 1,500 miles away to the west" and asserts that "Portuguese navigators apparently found a land located 1,500 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands—more or less where the South American coast is located—which they later named Authentic Island."
A very interesting online source written by Michael Ferrar reads this text as: "Ixola A(n)tarticha, Xe longo a ponente 1500 mia" and gives it the following interpretation (I summarize his text): While reading Gavin Menzies book ("1421, the year China discovered the world") he read on page 277 that the text «Andrea Bianco’s map of 1448 referred to, “Ixola Otinticha. Xe longa a ponente 1500 mia” with a translation reading “a genuine island is 1500 miles west of here (West Africa)”» Ferrar consulted an expert on ancient Venetian writing who read "Ixola A(n)tarticha. Xe longo a ponente 1500 mia”, that could be translated from Venecian to English as: “The Antarctic Island. It has 1500 miles long to the west”." This expert suggests that the island is a reference to the mythical Antarctic continent or Terra Incognita Australis, legendary like the dos ermanes islands.
An older version, from 1895 (A Pre-Columban Discovery of America, by H. Yule Oldham, The Geographical Journal, Vol. 5, No. 3 (Mar., 1895), pp. 221-233, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1773930) shows this same map and refers to the mysterious text as follows: "at the lower edge of the map, south-west from Cape Verde-that is, in the direction of Brazil— there is to be seen a long stretch of coast-line with this singular inscription in the Venetian dialect: "isola otinticha," that is authentic or authenticated island. It is difficult to believe that this can refer to anything but Brazil... Owing to lack of room on the parchment on which the map is drawn, only a corner of this island is shown, on the very edge of the skin, but still much closer to Cape Verde than Brazil actually is. As if, however, to prevent any misconception, the cartographer has added under the words "ixola otinticha" the qualifying statemen, "xe longa a ponente 1500 mia.""
Oldham argues, with a lengthy explanation in the footnote, that "longa" in old Venetian means "distant" and that the text should be interpreted as: "authentic island is distant 1500 miles to the west."
Opposing View
A publication (Um suposto descobrimento do Brasil antes de 1448 —A supposed discovery of Brazil before 1448— by Tomás Oscar Marcondes de Souza in the Revista do Instituto Historico e Geografico de Sao Paulo, vol XLVI, p. 211, 1948, suggests that the idea of a pre-Cabral discovery is a fantasy. Among other things, it analyzes Bianco's map, and includes two images of the relevant text, that we show below, and adds the following comments about these texts.
"While studying the issue related to the discovery of the islands of the Cape Verde archipelago in 1944, we came across, between pages 98 and 99 of the book published by the Ministry of Colonies of the Portuguese Republic, entitled: - "Letters from the islands of Cape Verde, by Vindim Fernandes", by A. Fontoura da Costa, a photographic reproduction of a part of André Bianco's map from 1448, precisely where the much-discussed "Ixola Otinticha" is drawn.
"
Our surprise was enormous when we verified in this photographic reproduction the existence of another legend, already mentioned by us, on the island under study, with words, partly illegible, but perfectly distinguishable, these final words: "a ponente /500 / mia", which can be verified in the cliché that we publish here." [this is the upper text in the image further up]
As an example, we reproduce here the adulterated legend of "Isla Otinticha" published in volume 1, page XXXII, of "History of the Portuguese Colonization of Brazil". As is easily verified, the falsification consisted of altering the number of miles indicated in the legend of the island in question from 500 to 1500, considering that the real distance between Cape Verde and Cape São Roque in Brazil is approximately 1520 miles." [bottom text in image above]
The author concludes: "Thus, the infamous "Ixola Otinticha" from André Bianco's portolan chart of 1448 is perfectly identified with the current island of Santiago, one of the Cape Verde archipelago, and at the same time one of the great proofs that Brazil was discovered by the Portuguese before Columbus's feat and Cabral's voyage to Calicut is annulled."
I took a good look at the map that is shown further up, the original map, Source and it seems that it says 1500, and not 500. But my guess is as good as anyone else's unless the parchment is analyzed in depth (ink samples, etc.). It also seems to say ixola otinticha, which differs from what the expert told Ferrar (Ixola A(n)tarticha).
Saint Brendan and Sancho Brandão
An article published in 1927 (Did St. Brendan Discover Brazil? by Honor Walsh, Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, Vol. 38, No. 4 (Dec., 1927), pp. 377-384. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44208689.pdf) mentions, that "Brazil has two names; one, "Ilha de Brasil" (Isle of Brasil), the other, "Ilha de Brandao" (Isle of Brendan?) . Both of these names appear in a letter written under date of February 12, 1343, by King Alfonso IV of Portugal, addressed to the Sovereign Pontiff, although Brazil is supposed to have been terra incognita until its "accidental discovery " by Pedro Alvarez Cabral in the year 1500.". It cites its source as a Brazilian journal, Jorno de Brasil, of Rio de Janeiro, authored by Assis Cintra, who places this letter from the king to the Pope in the be in the secret archives of the Vatican, Book 138, folios 148 and 149.
The discoverer according to Cintra was a man called Sancho Brandaõ, which is very similar to the same-sounding San Brandaõ (St. Brendan)! who was "driven westward by a storm until he reached the shore of a magnificent land, rich in timber yielding a red ink or coloring" (now known as Brazil wood).
The text adds that "Annexed to the letter is a map of the land discovered, with the alternative titles, 'Insula de Brasil' and 'Insula de Brandao'. According to the same Brazilian historian, "In 1375, Charles V, King of France, sent to the Vatican a cartographer from Majorca to copy the Portugese map, with orders to correct and amplify the original in accordance with the explorations carried out from 1343 to 1375. This map is in the Iconographical Section of the National Library in Paris (III, 132, s. XVI) and Brasil Island is shown thereon with more or less the same conformation and position as South America." This is the same information provided by Max Fleiuss.
Walsh then explains that Cabral, after discovering what we now call Brazil, named it "Terra da Santa Cruz" (Holy Cross Land). The name then changed to Brazil due to the red-dye wood of that name. However Walsh repeats a theory put forward by Richard Gumfoleton Daunt, that says that the Portuguese believed they had found the country of Ui Breasail, of the Irish legend, discovered by St. Brendan, so "they were not changing the name from Terra da Santa Cruz to that of a kind of wood, but were reverting to the old name. In this way the Brasil wood would get its name from the country, and not the reverse, as is generally believed." The text adds that Ui Brasil or Ui Breasil, is sometimes written as Hy Brasil. In the Irish Celtic mythology it was an island that could be seen in the western ocean for one day every seven years. It was the Island of the Blessed, also known as the Enchanged Island. (Source)
Regarding the red-dye, known as Brazil, I have mentioned it in a post back in 2011 (Phoenicians, red dye, Ophir, the origin of the name Brazil, etc.)
Assis Cintra
The person mentioned by Walsh, Cintra, existed, and he did write about an early discovery of Brazil. He was Francisco Assis Cintra (1887-1937) was a Brazilian historian, journalist, essayist, and I did find the reference to the letter sent by King Alphonso IV to the Pope Clement VI in 1343 in his book Na Margem da Historia (p.123) —On the Margins of History published in 1930, and in his book O Nome Brasil (com “s” ou com “z”) —The name Brazil (with an “s” or a “z”) (p. 184), published in 1920. They are the source of the text that Walsh and Fleiuss mentioned in their works.
There is another source that mentions correspondence between Alfonso IV and the Pope (who at that time lived in Avignon, France, not in Rome), in this book, published in 1872, but it mentions it in the context of the Fortunate Islands (Canary Islands) and not Brazil, however (see p. xiii) it mentions that this expedition whose pilot was a Genoese, Nicoloso de Recco, brought back " red wood which dyed almost as well as the verzino (Brazil wood) although connoisseurs pronounced it not to be the same; the barks of trees to stain with a red colour...
Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2025by Austin Whittall ©
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