Note 201 — GOMES EANNES DE AZURARA; (continued 5)

(p. 247). 1445 ... Gonçalo Velho.—[In the unpublished chart of Gabriel de Valsequa, made in Majorca in 1439, the following note is written in the middle of the Azores islands: "The which islands were found by Diego de Sevill, pilot of the King of Portugal, in the year 1432" (according to the better reading). We transcribe this note because of the date and the name of the discoverer, seeing that the date agrees with what Padre Freire says in his Life of Prince Henry (pp. 319, 320), i.e., that it was in 1432 that the island of Santa Maria (Azores) was discovered by Gonçalo Velho, and not by Diego de Senill, as Valsequa says. De Murr, in his dissertation on the globe of Martin de Behaim, also declares that the Azores were found in 1432. Nevertheless, a great confusion as to the true date of the discovery of the Azores exists among the authorities; and if maps anterior to 1432 are compared with what Padre Freire says (p. 323) as to the discovery of the Island of St. Michael, that the existence of this island "accorded (as the Infant said) with his ancient maps," the discovery of the Azores would appear to have been effected before 1432. In fact, in the Parma map of the fourteenth century, these islands are marked; while the Catalan Map of the Paris National Library shows the following islands in the archipelago of the Azores named in Italian:—Insula de Corvi marini (Island of Corvo); Le Conigi; San Zorzo (St. Jorge); Li Colombi; Insula de Brasil; Insule de Sante (Maria?).

In the unpublished map of the Pinelli Library, the date of which has been fixed as between 1380 and 1400, the said islands are marked with the following names:—Caprana; I. de Brasil; Li Colombi; I. de la Ventura; Sã Zorzi; Li Combi; I. di Corvi marini.

In the Valsequa Chart of 1439 these islands indicated by the cosmographer are marked to the number of eight, three being small ones. The names are:—Ilha de Sperta; Guatrilla; Ylla de l'Inferno; Ylla de Frydols; Ylla de Osels (Uccello); Ylla de ...; Ylla de Corp-Marinos; Conigi.

It is noteworthy that the names of these islands, in the map of the Majorcan cosmographer, which is the most modern, are all altered, while in the Catalan map made by his compatriots, sixty-four years earlier, the following names given by the Portuguese discoverers are found: Ilha de Corvo, de S. Jorge, and de Santa Maria, just as in the Italian maps of the fourteenth century.]—S. The seven islands mentioned rather confusedly by Azurara at end of ch. lxxxiii (p. 248, top) are the Azores.