AUSTRÁLIA - AUSTRALIA - AUSTRALIA

Australia coat of arms 

A book of pray of a Portuguese nun, Catarina de Carvalho, created between 1580 and 1620, in the dark times of Spanish control, show a animal that seems a kangaroo, another piece for the puzzle of Australia discovering ...

AUSTRALIA come from the Latin AUSTRALIS meaning Southern.

By it North The navigateur Willem Janszoon (1570-1630) from Netherlands, knew the gulf of Carpentaria in 1606. For the majority of historians he is the leader of the European disvoring of Australia. But many ways go to a Portuguese discovering:

Map of East Timor created by Vardion (Wikipedia) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.pt

- Portuguese discovered Timor in 1512, so near Australia and so far from Portugal;

«East Coast of Australia»(?) PORTOLAN ATLAS, Nicholas Vallard, Dieppe, 1547 http://dpg.lib.berkeley.edu/webdb/dsheh/heh_brf?Description=&CallNumber=HM+29             

«Facsimile of chart from Nicholas Vallard's manuscript sea atlas (1547), (...) was given the title "The first Map of Australia from Nicholas Vallard's Atlas, 1547" by the English publisher in 1856. The original Vallard chart was produced in Dieppe, France in the 16th century, and is thought by several writers to represent Portuguese charting of the eastern coast of Australia. This copy is held by the National Library of Australia.» http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ficheiro:Australia_first_map.jpg
- European map show a probable coast of Australia before Netherlands mission;
- The Portuguese navigateur Gomes de Sequeira probably contact Australia in 1525 when leading a Portuguese mission to explore the limits of Treaty of Tordesilhas between Portugal and Castilla (1492);
- Cristóvão de Mendonça in him secret mission of discovering the Gold Island probably contact of the East cost of Australia in 1522 represented in the map of 1547 (defended also by the Australian journalist Peter Trickett published in 2007 in The Sidney Morning Herald)

«(...) (1522) Armada de Cristovam de Mendonça que foy descobrir a ilha do ouro no ditto tempo.

Item, ho navyo Sam Christovam em que elle vaii

Item, a caravella Rosayro capitão Pedr'Eanes Francces³

Item, ho bragantym Sant'Antonio capitão Francisco Pereira

Item, hum parao capitão Gonçalo Homem que he seu e carrega-se a custa dell reii per hordenança do governador que ho asy requereo por ho aver por seu serviço pêra este descobrimento. (...)» Relação dos navios que servem na Índia 1522 (Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo, Lisboa)

http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/islands_oceans_poles/oceania_ref01.pdf

True in History always come above like the olive oil in water ...

http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/olive-oil-water-2464575.jpg