Satanazes

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Zuane Pizzigano's map from 1424
Excerpt from Pizzigano's menu; Satanazes (blue) above and Antilia (red) below

Satanazes , also Stanazes, Satanaxio, Salvaga, Salvatga, etc. a., is a phantom island that appears on several maps from the 15th century. It is said to be in the North Atlantic, west of the Azores and north of the (also fictional) island of Antilia . The name Satanazes is derived from the Spanish "el Satanás" (the devil).

The oldest previously known representation of Satanazes located on the portolan chart of Zuane Pizzigano from the year 1424. On the card, which is kept in the collection of Sir Thomas Phillips in the James Ford Bell Library at the University of Minnesota, is in the western Atlantic a group of four islands named Satanazes, Antilia, Saya and Ymana are drawn. Two particularly large islands stand out, one colored in red and another - north of it - dark blue. The blue island is called "Satanazes" and is rectangular in shape with seven sea bays. Five cities are named: Aralia, Ysa, Nar, Con and Ymana. Directly above, the small, crescent-shaped island of Saya is shown as a secondary island like a cap.

The name Satanazes bears the addition: "Ista ixolla dixemo satanazes", which was translated as: "This is called the island of devils." The travel writer Vincenzo Formaleoni (1752–1797) translates it, however, as "The island of the hand of Satan." “And refers to a map from the Atlas of Andrea Bianco from 1436. There are two rectangular islands of considerable size in the west of the Azores, about 240 nautical miles (450 km) west of the Portuguese coast. Bianco calls the northern, somewhat smaller, “ysla de la Man Satanaxio”, the island of the hand of Satan.

This name is based on the following Irish legend published by the American writer Thomas Wentworth Higginson :

The sons of the wealthy farmer Conall Ua Corra, unruly young men who had committed many atrocities, on the advice of the holy Finn of Cluain Iraird (or Finns of Clonard ) went on a pilgrimage to atone for their iniquities. In a curragh they sailed from Connaught ( Connacht in northwest Ireland ) to the northwest into the Atlantic. On their long journey they visited several wonderful islands. Eventually they arrived on an island off Spain and met grieving women on the beach. As the women said, their men fell victim to Satan because they came too close to the "Isla della Man Satanaxio", the island of Satan's hand, with their ship. The island of Satan is surrounded by cold ocean currents and always covered by fog. In addition, she constantly changes her position, so that no one has ever been able to land there. However, when a ship approaches the island, especially at night, a huge demon hand arises, which the men pluck from the upper deck. They disappeared, never to be seen again. When the brothers laughed at this account and called it a fairy tale, a priest showed them an old map with the island of Satanagio marked on it. Accompanied by a Spanish fishing boat, the brothers set out to find the mysterious island. After they had passed many green and fertile islands, they finally got into a bank of fog from which suddenly a huge hand rose into the sky and the Spaniards' boat smashed. Only a few of the fishermen managed to escape into the curragh. The survivors sailed west for safety, and when darkness came the exhausted anchored on the beach of a barren and barren island that had suddenly emerged from the mist. But when the fog thickened and they lifted anchor, the same hand rose and swept the men overboard, who were struggling to save themselves. From the fog bank they heard the tireless roar of the troubled sea and terrible screams, as if the devilish hand had found more victims. When the fog cleared around noon, there was no island in sight. On their long journey back, the survivors encountered several icebergs until they were finally able to return to Spain.

The island has different names on later maps, for example: Satanagio on a portolan by Battista Beccario from 1435, Salirosa on the Laon globe from 1493 or Saluaga on the map of Grazioso Benincasa from 1470. Different positions and other city names are often recorded, but most of the time Satanazes is mentioned in the context of the island of Antilia . This may be due to the fact that, according to legend, at the time of the Moorish conquest of Spain, Antilia was settled by seven bishops and their Christian followers, who fled the Moors and founded seven cities. Antilia was therefore also called "The Island of the Seven Cities", which was under the special protection of God. To the north of it there was Satanazes, the island of Satan, the adversary.

According to the German geographer Georg Hassel , the islands of Antilia and Stanaxio represent both parts of the American mainland, which were imagined to be separated by a strait in the 16th century. The writer Gavin Menzies claims that Antilia and Satanazes are identical to the Caribbean islands of Puerto Rico and Guadeloupe . The Portuguese agronomist, colonial historian (and Olympian) Armando Cortesão has already taken this view .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Jerald Fritzinger: Pre Columbian Trans-Oceanic Contact . Lulu.com, USA 2016, p. 222
  2. ↑ Vincenzo Formaleoni: Compendio della storia generale de 'viaggi. Opera di M. De La Harpe accademico parigino. Adorna di Carte Geografiche, e Figure. Arricchita d'annotazioni. Tomovigesimo. (unito a :) Saggio sulla nautica antica dei veneziani di vincenzo Formaleoni. Venice 1783, p. 48
  3. ↑ Alexander von Humboldt: Critical studies on the historical development of the geographical knowledge of the New World and the progress of nautical astronomy in the 15th and 16th centuries. Translated from the French by Julius Ludwig Ideler, Nicolai, Berlin 1836 and 1852, pp. 414 and 416
  4. ^ Thomas Wentworth Higginson: Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic. The Macmillan Company, New York 1898, pp. 134 f. (Reprint: ISBN 1-58963-658-9 )
  5. ↑ Edward Brooke-Hitching: Atlas of Invented Places: The Biggest Errors and Lies on Maps. DTV 2017, ISBN 978-3-423-28141-6 , pp. 210-211
  6. ^ Donald S. Johnson: Mirage of the Seas - The vanished islands of the Atlantic. Diana-Verlag, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-8284-5019-9 , p. 169
  7. ↑ Georg Hassel: Complete and most recent earth description of British and Russian America and the French fishing islands. Verlag des Geographisches Institut Weimar 1822, pp. 5–6
  8. ↑ Gavin Menzies: 1421. When China discovered the world. Droemer, Munich 2003, p. 15, ISBN 3-426-27306-3
  9. ^ Armando Cortesão: The Nautical Chart of 1424 and the Early Discovery and Cartographical Representation of America - A Study on the History of Early Cartography. University of Coimbra, 1954