Satanazes
A 15th-century phantom island in the north Atlantic.
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Satanazes, also called the Island of Devils or the Hand of Satan, is a legendary island that appeared on many 15th-century maps in the north Atlantic Ocean. It was first drawn by Venetian cartographer Zuane Pizzigano in 1424 and often grouped with the nearby island of Antillia. The island is notable for its recurring depiction on portolan charts and its disappearance from maps after Columbus's voyages.
Quick Facts
- First depicted
- 1424
- Cartographer
- Zuane Pizzigano
- Location
- North Atlantic Ocean, west of the Azores and Portugal, north of Antillia
- Alternative names
- Island of Devils
- Hand of Satan
- Satanagio
- Satanaxio
- Salvaga
- Salvagio
- Salvatga
- Salvagia
- Salvaja
- Salirosa
- Group
- Antillia group (insulae de novo rep(er)te)
- Last major appearances
- 1480s
- Disappeared from maps
- After 1490s
Facts from the source article.
Cartographic depiction
On 15th-century portolan charts, Satanazes was drawn as a large, blue rectangular island indented with bays and five or six settlements, lying due west of the Azores and Portugal and just north of Antillia. Pizzigano placed Satanazes about sixty leagues north of Antillia and capped it with a small umbrella-shaped island he called Saya, later known as Tanmar or Danmar. These islands, together with Ymana (later Royllo), formed the Antillia group, also labeled by Andrea Bianco as insulae de novo rep(er)te.
Grazioso Benincasa's 1463 atlas named the settlements on Satanazes as Araialis, Cansillia, Duchal, Jmada, Nam and Saluaga. The island appeared under various names on maps by Battista Beccario (1435), Andrea Bianco (1436), Benincasa (1463, 1470, 1482), the anonymous Weimar map (1460s), Pedro Roselli (1480, 1489), Albino de Canepa (1480, 1489), an anonymous Majorcan cartographer (1487), and the Laon globe (1493). It was omitted from maps by Bartolomeo Pareto (1455), Cristoforo Soligo (c. 1475), Andrea Benincasa (1476), and Martin Behaim's Nuremberg globe (1492), even though those maps included Antillia and sometimes Saya.
Etymology and legend
The name Satanazes is Portuguese for 'satans' or 'devils', while Beccario's Satanagio is the same word in Ligurian dialect and Bianco's Satanaxio in Venetian. After disappearing from maps after 1436, the island reappeared in 1462 when Benincasa renamed it Salvaga, meaning 'savage'—possibly a misreading but more likely a deliberate change to avoid the profanity of 'devil'. The Laon globe's Salirosa appears to be a mis-transcription of Salvaga. Historians have suggested that the 'devils' of Satanazes might refer to the Skrælings, the indigenous peoples of Greenland and Vinland described in Norse sagas such as the Grœnlendinga saga and the saga of Erik the Red, which began circulating southward around that time.
Pizzigano may have created Satanazes to approximate their geographic location. This connection was first proposed by Nordenskiöld in 1889, who noted an inscription on Johannes Ruysch's 1508 map describing devils attacking sailors near Newfoundland and Greenland. Fridtjof Nansen pointed out that Norse encounters with North American 'demons' were adopted into Irish immrama, and legends of Atlantic seafarers—Norse, Irish, Arab, and Iberian—likely cross-fertilized, bringing news of an Isle of Devils to Italian cartographers through multiple channels. Georg Hassel conjectured that Satanazes and Antillia might represent the coasts of North and South America, suggesting pre-Columbian contact, while Babcock proposed that Satanazes represents Florida, Antillia Cuba, Roylla Jamaica, and Tanmar the Bahamas.
More in Mythological Islands
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Satanazes (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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