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 46 ST. BRENDAN'S ISLANDS probably of about 1480 or I49O, 21 and divers others. In several instances (the Beccario maps, for example) the words are almost as near to the most southerly pair of the Azores, next above them, as to the Madeiras below, and it is possible that the condition of special beatitude was understood as extending to the former also. THE BIANCO MAP OF 1448 At any rate, the verdict of the fifteenth century for Madeira was by no means unanimous. The 1448 map of Bianco, 22 which is very unlike his earlier one of 1436 so far as concerns the Atlantic, was prepared after all the Azores had been found again by the Portuguese except Flores and Corvo. It shows the old familiar inaccurately north-and-south string of the three groups of the Azores as they had come to him conventionally and traditionally, for evidently he did not dare or could not bring himself to discard them. But it also shows a slanting array of islands farther out, arranged in two groups respectively of two islands and five islands each and much more accurately presented as to location and di- rection than the old Italian stand-bys. These are quite clearly the Portuguese version, brought down to that date, of the newly re- discovered Azorean archipelago. But Bianco was obviously put to it to conjecture what islands these might be. He drew names from miscellaneous sources: in particular the largest island of the main group, corresponding to Terceira, bears the title "y a fortunat de sa. beati blandan." Nevertheless, he shows and names Ma- deira, Porto Santo, and Deserta in their usual places. Evidently he had given up, if he ever held, all thought of annexing St. Brendan's special blessing to them. He seems very confident of the St. Brandan's Island of his slanting series, for it is drawn heavily in black and contrasts with the rather ghastly aspect of some neighbors. It has nearly the form of a Maltese cross, with long arms, but there is no reason to suppose that this has any significance. 21 W. H. Babcock: Indications of Visits of White Men to America before Colum- bus, Proc. iQth Internall. Congr. of Americanists held at Washington, Dec. 27-31, 1915, [Smithsonian Institution], Washington, D. C., 1917, pp. 460-478; map on p. 476. z 2 Theobald Fischer, Portfolio n, Pis. 3 and 4., "*