Insulae Capitis Viridis

Title

Insulae Capitis Viridis

Description

Map shows the Cape Verde Islands Cape Verde, partly the coast of West Africa and a title cartouche.

ca. 1616

Artist

Bertius (1565-1629)

Petrus Bertius (1565 -1629) was a Flemish theologian, historian, geographer and cartographer, He grew up in Beveren (Flanders). In 1593 he was appointed mathematics professor and librarian of the University of Leyden. His main cartographic work includes a miniature world atlas of 1600, a pocket atlas of the German Empire of 1616 with 26 engraved maps and 101 city views, a version of the Geographia of Ptolemy with 28 maps by Mercator and 14 maps from the Parergon of Ortelius of 1618, but he is known today as a cartographer with his edition of the Geographia of Ptolemy (based on Mercator's edition of 1578) and for his atlas.

Historical Description

The uninhabited islands were circled by António Fernandes in 1445 and discovered and entered for the first time in 1456 by the Venetian Alvise Cadamosto, who was in Portuguese service (Boa Vista). Antonio da Noli, a Genoese captain who also sailed on behalf of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator, continued to explore the islands from 1458 in collaboration with Diogo Gomes, discovered most of the rest of the eastern Cape Verde Islands and baptized the archipelago with the name Ilhas de Cabo Verde and began settling the islands as governor of the Portuguese crown from 1461. In fact, Diogo Gomes later claimed to be the first of the two to have seen the island of Santiago from afar and also to have been the first to set foot on it. Antonio da Noli, however, managed to return to Portugal earlier, and he was then understandably rewarded by Heinrich the Navigator with the encouragement of the discovery, which, in the words of Diogo Gomes, "I, Gomes, discovered". Because of the rivalry between the two, Diogo Gomes is considered to be the true discoverer of the main island of Santiago in Portuguese historiography. The islands were named by the Portuguese after Cabo Verde (Green Cape) on the west coast of Africa.