Cosa placed the Tropic of Cancer just south of Cuba — instead of just north as it should be. This misplacement of latitude, suggesting La Cosa was working from second-hand information, was repeated by subsequent map makers for two decades. The error, amounting to approximately 13 degrees, should be kept in mind when evaluating early New World maps.

The Florida peninsula is not delineated by Cosa. However, a mainland close by Cuba stretches northward to a "sea discovered by the Englishmen."

Despite their treaty agreement, the Portuguese continued to sail Caribbean waters keeping an eye on Spanish movements and probing for lands rich enough to justify defiance of the Pope.

Possible evidence of Portuguese intrusions may be the Alberto Cantino map of 1502. It is another puzzle.

Cantino was a horse trader in Lisbon, then a busy port with skillful cartographers. It is known that he visited the two ships of Miguel Real who returned in 1501 from a New World search for his brother, Corte. The search was fruitless. Indeed, another brother, Gaspar, who stayed in the New World to continue the search, also was never heard from again. Miguel did bring back several score Indians who were the sensation of Portugal. He claimed to have coasted 600 miles, but his charts have not been found.

The following year, Cantino was commissioned to buy horses for the Duke of Ferrara at Florence, Italy. Anxious to learn of the startling discoveries all Europe was talking about, the duke directed Cantino to obtain an up-to-date map. This the horse trader did by bribing an unknown map maker with 12 gold ducats.

The map Cantino purchased appears to be a pirated copy of the Cosa chart with addition of the Florida peninsula in remarkable detail — but not fastened to a land mass.

The strange peninsula apparently was well explored on both coasts because many place names are given. The grammar, a mixture of Spanish and Portuguese, suggests direct copying of a mariner's chart. For the most part, designations are vague — Alligator River, White Coast and Cape of Insects (mosquitos?) for example.

Specific, however, is the name applied to the southern extremity — Cabo Fim de Abril(Cape of Last Day of April). A subsequent series of maps make it clear that Florida was intended.

But who coasted the peninsula and turned the corner on April 30 prior to 1502?

The eminent historian Samuel Eliot Morision proposes in his "European Discovery of America" that the unknown discoverer might be Duarte Periera of Portugal. In 1508 Periera wrote that ten years earlier Don Manuel had ordered him to "discover the western region." He claimed to have found "a very large land mass, with many large islands adjacent, extending 70 degrees north of the equator and 28 degrees toward the south pole."

WAS FLORIDA KNOWN?

Juan de Solis and Vicente Pinzon were ordered by King Ferdinand in 1508 to explore the Caribbean Sea and "find a channel or open sea" under pain of punishment for failure. Of course, they returned a year later without finding access to the Pacific.

True to his threat, the King jailed his unlucky navigators but relented after a bit and allowed them expenses of the trip. Interestingly the King also confiscated and suppressed their log and charts. He noted for the official record only that Solis and Pinzon had "discovered various lands."

Early maps disclose that explorers knew there was land north of Cuba. Pietro Martyr, A trusted cleric of the Spanish court who also liked to talk with sailors, drew a chart in 1511 showing a large "Island of Bimini" hard by. Caribbean Indians said Santatan, a fountain of youth, flowed there. A row of small islands and shoals surely reflect knowledge of the Florida Keys. The circle of islets now known as the Marquesas is unmistakable. On the back of his map Martyr wrote, "to the north there have been discovered marvelous lands."

The Council of the Indies declared in a 1565 letter to the Spanish king: "Since the year 1510 up til today, fleets as well as ships of this kingdom have divers times gone to occupy Florida in the name of your majesty." It is easy to assume that Martyr had seen maps of Solis and Pinzon; or that a scouting party had touched Florida shores and furnished details for Martyr's map.

Amerigo Vespucci, in his later years, asserted he visited the West Indies and discovered South America in 1497. Most scholars disagree, contending that documents prove Vespucci was in Seville at that date conducting his ship chandler business as usual. Much information attributed to his "first voyage" is rather that of Alonso de Ojeda's 1499-1500 expedition, for which Vespucci was a boatswain mate.