Note 426-2 — THE VOYAGES OF JOHN CABOT
Reading edition
El brasilio for el legno brasilio. Brazil wood was an East Indian red wood imported into Europe. It is the Caesalpina sappan. Its bright color led to its being compared to glowing coals, brazia, brascia, etc., Eng. brazier, and then to its being called, as it were, “glowing coals wood,” lignum brasile, lignum brasilium, etc., and in Italian most commonly brasile and verzino, a popular corruption. Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, II. 587. On the transference of the name of this wood to a mythical island in the Atlantic and then, after the discoveries, to the present country of Brazil which produced dye-woods similar to Brasilio, see Yule’s art. “Brazil, Island of,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, I. 49-51.