Map proves Portuguese discovered
Australia: new book
250 years before James Cook!
A 16th-century map from the Vallard Atlas appears to mark geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, although the orientation of part of the map is off. In a newly published book, Peter Trickett says this is because the Portuguese charts were misaligned when they were copied.

Wed March 21, 6:26 AM

 By Michael Perry
SYDNEY (Reuters) - A 16th century maritime map in a Los Angeles library vault proves that Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, says a new book which details the secret discovery of Australia.
The book "Beyond Capricorn" says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves that Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonça lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 -- almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook.
Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognize all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney -- the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.
"It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at all," Trickett told Reuters on Wednesday.
Trickett said he stumbled across a copy of the map while browsing through a Canberra book shop eight years ago.
He said the shop had a reproduction of the Vallard Atlas, a collection of 15 hand drawn maps completed no later than 1545 in France. The maps represented the known world at the time.
Two of the maps called "Terra Java" had a striking similarity to Australia's east coast except at one point the coastline jutted out at right angles for 1,500 km (932 miles).
"There was something familiar about them but they were not quite right -- that was the puzzle. How did they come to have all these Portuguese place names?," Trickett said.
Trickett believed the cartographers who drew the Vallard maps had wrongly aligned two Portuguese charts they were copying from.
It is commonly accepted that the French cartographers used maps and "portolan" charts acquired illegally from Portugal and Portuguese vessels that had been captured, Trickett said.
"The original portolan maps would have been drawn on animal hide parchments, usually sheep or goat skin, of limited size," he explained. "For a coastline the length of eastern Australia, some 3,500 kms, they would have been 3 to 4 charts."
"The Vallard cartographer has put these individual charts together like a jigsaw puzzle. Without clear compass markings its possible to join the southern chart in two different ways. My theory is it had been wrongly joined."
Using a computer Trickett rotated the southern part of the Vallard map 90 degrees to produce a map which accurately depicts Australia's east coast.
"They provided stunning proof that Portuguese ships made these daring voyages of discovery in the early 1520s, just a few years after they had sailed north of Australia to reach the Spice Islands -- the Moluccas. This was a century before the Dutch and 250 years before Captain Cook," he said.
Trickett believes the original charts were made by Mendonça who set sail from the Portuguese base at Malacca with four ships on a secret mission to discover Marco Polo's "Island of Gold" south of Java.
If Trickett is right, Mendonça map shows he sailed past Fraser Island off Australia's northeast coast, into Botany Bay in Sydney, and south to Kangaroo Island off southern Australia, before returning to Malacca via New Zealand's north island.
Mendonça's discovery was kept secret to prevent other European powers reaching the new land, said Trickett, who believes his theory is supported by discoveries of 16th century Portuguese artifacts on the Australian and New Zealand coasts.

Second article after the launching of the book in Australia!
Rotated map puts a twist in the foundation tale

Steve Meacham
March 19, 2007
DID a Portuguese seafarer called Christopher de Mendonça lead a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 - almost 250 years before Captain James Cook?
The startling claim is made in a book - published today - by the retired Canberra-based science journalist Peter Trickett. Trickett believes Mendonça left irrefutable evidence of his historic voyage: a detailed and uncannily accurate map of Australia's entire east coast.
Trickett's quest began eight years ago in a Canberra bookshop where he bought a beautiful portfolio of rarely seen maps - exquisite reproductions from the Vallard Atlas, a 16th-century document so precious and delicate it never leaves its air-conditioned vault in the Huntington Library in Los Angeles.
The original Vallard Atlas contains 15 hand-drawn maps, completed no later than 1545 in Dieppe, France, and represents the entire world as it was then known to Europeans. Scholars had long asked why part of one of the Vallard maps - featuring 120 place names in Portuguese, not French - closely resembled the coast of Queensland. But they had dismissed it as a coincidence, because the map suddenly jutted out at right angles for 1500 kilometers, bearing no relation to any known coastline.
However, Trickett came up with an intriguing theory: what if the atlas compilers in Dieppe had wrongly aligned two Portuguese charts they were copying from?
He called in a computer expert who was able to cut the map in two and rotate the bottom half 90 degrees.
"Up to that point it was just a theory," Trickett says.
"But once it was rotated … the entire east coast of Australia, and part of the south coast as far as Kangaroo Island, was revealed in incredible detail."
Trickett believes the charts were made by Mendonça, who set off from the Portuguese base at Malacca with a fleet of four ships on a secret mission ordered by King Manuel I. If Trickett is right, Mendonça sailed past Fraser Island, into Botany Bay, around Wilsons Promontory and as far as Kangaroo Island before returning to Malacca via the North Island of New Zealand.
But because the Portuguese wanted to prevent other European powers learning about their discovery, Mendonca's charts were kept secret. Instead, says Trickett, Mendonça was rewarded by being made commander of the lucrative fortress at Ormuz in the Persian Gulf, where he eventually died. "His voyage ranks with that of Columbus or Magellan," says Trickett.
"But it was secret, unfortunately."
On the southern coast, Trickett says, Mendonça clearly marked many of the outstanding features: Cap Frimosa (Wilsons Promontory), Illa Grossa (Kangaroo Island), Rio Real (Spencer Gulf) and Golfo Grande (the Great Australian Bight). But the most significant feature on the Vallard map is Baia Neve. Trickett insists this is what Cook later called Botany Bay, the birthplace of modern Australia.
Beyond Capricorn: How Portuguese adventurers secretly discovered and mapped Australia and New Zealand 250 years before Captain Cook by Peter Trickett, East Street Publications, $35.

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