[Illustration: Map of the North by Nicolaus Germanus (before 1482), after Claudius Clavus, but with Greenland transferred to the north of Norway]
[Sidenote: Henricus Martellus, circa 1490]
The cartographer Henricus Martellus, who succeeded Nicolaus Germanus, again adopted Clavus's form of Greenland, wholly or in part, on his maps dating from about 1490.
In this way there arose on the maps of the close of the Middle Ages two types of the North: one with Greenland in a comparatively correct position to the west of Iceland, though far too near Europe and connected therewith, and another type with "Engronelant" as a peninsula to the north of Norway. The latter remained for a long time the usual one in all editions of Ptolemy, in other cartographical works and on many globes. After the rediscovery of Greenland we even get sometimes two delineations of this country on the same map, one to the north of Norway and the other in its right place in the west.
Greenland seems to have been given a wholly different form on a Catalan compass-chart from Majorca, of the close of the fifteenth century, where in the Atlantic to the west of Ireland and south-west of Iceland ["Fixlanda"] there is an island called "Illa verde" [the green isle]. It seems, as assumed by Storm [1893, p. 81], that the name must be a translation of Greenland, which is called in the Historia Norwegiæ "Viridis terra." The representation of Iceland ["Fixlanda"] on this map is incomparably better than on all earlier maps, and gives proof of new information having come from thence. As the place-names point to an English source, it is possible that the cartographer may have received information from Bristol, which city was engaged in the Iceland trade and fisheries, and his island, "Illa verde," may be due to an echo of reports about the forgotten Greenland in the west. It is worth remarking that the island is connected with the Irish mythical "Illa de brazil," which lay to the west of Ireland and which appears in this map twice over in its typical round form (cf. above, p. 228).[271] If we remember that this happy isle is in reality the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and that in the Historia Norwegiæ (see above, p. 1) it is said that Greenland ["Viridis terra"] nearly touches the African Islands (i.e., Insulæ Fortunatæ), then we possibly have an explanation of this juxtaposition. But as it is said in the same passage that Greenland forms the western end of Europe, we cannot suppose that the cartographer was acquainted with this work. The probability is, no doubt, that Greenland [Illa verde] together with Brazil or the Insulæ Fortunatæ had become transformed into mythical islands out in the ocean.