In November 1954, 530 years after its creation, the James Ford Bell Library acquired what is known as the 1424 Nautical Chart, inscribed with the name of Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano.  It seems fitting to share it with you on its 600^th anniversary.

Hand-painted on a single piece of parchment, Pizzigano’s map is what we call a portolan chart:  a manuscript map that emphasizes the sea and the ports of call that dot the surrounding coastline.  As Tony Campbell, former Map Librarian of the British Library, once put it:  “portolan charts preserve the Mediterranean sailors’ firsthand experience of their own sea, as well as their expanding knowledge of the Atlantic Ocean.”  The word “portolan” derives from the Italian word “portolano,” a collection of written sailing directions.  These texts list places, with distances and directions to reach them. For example, the James Ford Bell Library has a fourteenth-century Italian Portolano del Adriatico e Mediterra, which gives sailing directions from Constantinople to Lisbon, from the Adriatic Sea through the Mediterranean (Bell call #: 1300 Po).

Our 1424 chart is 57 x 90 centimeters: 23.44 x 35.43 inches or approximately 2 ft. x 3 ft. in size.  Parchment is specially treated and prepared animal skin and as you can see in the photo, the skin at the neck of the animal was preserved.  The map was once nailed to a wooden dowel at the straight end (the holes are still visible), so that it could be rolled up and then secured with a leather thong through two additional holes cut into the neck (which can be seen if you look closely).

As is characteristic of portolan charts, its coastlines are filled with place names and it is crisscrossed with color-coded rhumb lines or loxodromes, which form a grid but which also stem from carefully positioned compass points.  They form an arc that crosses all meridians of longitude at the same angle, making them useful for navigation.

Another unique feature of portolan charts are the tiny red dots that can be found marking areas of the sea in front of port cities.

Currently, most scholars believe these represent hazards to ships attempting to enter port.  These dots on the map would indicate to a ship’s captain that hiring a local pilot—someone with the expertise to navigate those particular coastal waters—would be a wise decision.

While the majority of surviving pre-Columbian portolan charts are focused on the Mediterranean Sea, the Pizzigano portolan depicts the western coast of Europe and North Africa, along with England and Ireland and the recently discovered Canaries and Madeira islands, as well as the Azores, which would not be “officially” discovered by the Portuguese for another few years, but which had already made a few appearances on 14^th century maps, including the famous Catalan atlas.  A few of the more well-known so-called legendary islands also appear, including Brazil, off the western coast of Ireland, which may be a remembrance of a since destroyed volcanic island.

This map’s claim to fame, however, rests in what is often called the Antilia group of islands – the improbably large islands in the western Atlantic.

The most southerly islands center around an island labeled Antilia, which has given its name to the Antilles island groups in the Caribbean.  The more northerly islands center on Satanazes, or Devil’s Island.

While all portolan charts are something of a mystery—no one really knows why they were made or how they were used—this 1424 map is the earliest known map to depict these island groups in the western Atlantic.  Since the map first came to scholarly attention in 1953, scholars have debated whether these islands represent real land masses, and if so, which land masses.  If they are “real,” then the question is how did Pizzigano learn of them, as they are much further out into the Atlantic than any of the islands discovered thus far, and further out than sailors were known to have sailed.

It was contemplating these questions that led Gavin Menzies to propose that the map provided proof that the Chinese discovered America, which he wrote about in his now famous book:  1421: The Year China Discovered America (2002).  While most scholars have debunked this theory—at least based on the inadequate evidence provided by Menzies—the islands on the Pizzigano chart continue to spark discussion and controversy.

These islands, although often referred to as the Antillia group, really are two separate sets of islands located quite far apart.  If one draws a line from the compass point centered at Madrid, latitude 40º23’ N, it connects to the compass point centered between the two island groups.  If one extends that line across North America and the Pacific, one lands in in Japan.

There are three main theories about these islands in scholarly circles.  First, that both sets of islands represent islands in the Caribbean:  Satanazes could be Puerto Rico and the more southerly group the Antilles.  However, that theory complete ignores their placement on the map in relationship to Europe.  The second theory suggests that Satanazes is Nova Scotia, where there exists today off the coast an island called Devil’s Island (44º35’N). And that the second island group reflects islands off the coast of present-day North Carolina, such as Cape Hattaras, 35º13’21”N.  The third theory accepts the Novia Scotia placement for Satanazes, particularly as an island labeled Devil’s Island can be found on numerous early modern maps in approximately that location, including on the 1602 Ricci Map.  However, it considers the southerly Antilia group to be the island group that comprises Japan (35º41’N at Tokyo).

The second and third theories rest on three factors:

1. The world view at this time considered the earth to be comprised of three continents, Europe, Africa, and Asia, a north pole and a south pole, and a world ocean studded with islands. It therefore was not surprising to the Portuguese and Spanish sailors that they encountered the Canaries, the Azores, and other Atlantic islands.  And therefore, any other land masses further out in the ocean would also be depicted as islands.
2. Fisherman chasing cod could have come down from the Grand Banks and, following the Labrador Current, encountered both Nova Scotia and Cape Hattaras. Documentation exists that suggests cod fisherman landed and dried their catches along the coast of North America later in the 15^th century – dried fish take up less room in a ship’s hold and enable fisherman to extend their fishing season – so they could certainly also have done so earlier in the century.
3. In the world view of Europeans in the early 15^th century, North America did not exist. Therefore, there was nothing except perhaps some islands between it and Asia across the world ocean.  In fact, Columbus was certain that he could sail west across the Ocean and reach China.  Is it a coincidence that the latitude of Japan fits the Antilia group of islands on the Pizzigano as well as Cape Hattaras does?

No one knows where Pizzigano obtained the data he placed on his chart.  And no one knows what these large islands in the western Atlantic are meant to be. No sources have yet been found to explain Pizzigano’s choices. Are they representations of real islands or are they imaginary?

It’s a mystery.