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The name of Brazil is shortened from ''Terra do Brasil'', "land of brazilwood", given in the early 16th century to the territories leased to the merchant consortium led by Fernão de Noronha for commercial exploitation, which focussed on the production of dyewood for the European cloth industry. The name of the brazilwood tree (Portuguese ''pau-brasil'') is derived from medieval Latin ''lignum brasilium'' (or ''brisilium''); the etymology of ''brasilium'' is often given as "red like an ember", formed from medieval Latin ''brasa'' "ember, glowing charcoal" (Old French ''brese'', from a West Germanic '' *brasa'').〔(CNRTL ) - Centre National de Ressources Textuelles et Lexicales (Michaelis ) - Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa (iDicionário Aulete ) 〕 ==Early names== The land of what became Brazil was first called ''Ilha de Vera Cruz'' ("Island of the True Cross") by the Portuguese captain Pedro Álvares Cabral, upon the Portuguese discovery of the land in 1500, probably in honor of the Feast of the Cross (May 3 on the liturgical calendar). This name is found in two letters, one written by Pêro Vaz de Caminha, another by Mestre João Faras, both written during Cabral's landing and dispatched to Lisbon by courier (either André Gonçalves or Gaspar de Lemos, chronicles conflict).〔 Gaspar Correia (''Lendas da India'', c.1550: p.152) identifies the returning captain as André Gonçalves, while João de Barros (''Decadas da Asia'', 1552: p.390) and Damião de Góis (''Cronica do Rei D. Manuel'', 1566: p.69) say it was Gaspar de Lemos.〕 Upon the courier's arrival in Lisbon, it was quickly renamed ''Terra de Santa Cruz'' ("Land of the Holy Cross") (hugging the coast on his return trip, the courier must have realized that Brazil was clearly not an island). Italian merchants in Lisbon, who interviewed the returning crews in 1501, recorded its name as the "Land of Parrots" (''Terra di Papaga'').〔e.g. the letter of Giovanni Matteo Cretico (June 27, 1501) and a diary entry of Marino Sanuto (Oct 12, 1502) call it "Terra di Papaga'"; on-board diarist Thomé Lopes (1502, (p.160 )) refers to it as the "Ilha dos Papagaios vermelhos" ("island of the red parrots").〕 The Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci joined the follow-up Portuguese expedition in 1501 to map the coast of Brazil. Shortly upon his return to Lisbon, Vespucci authored a famous letter to his former employer Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici characterizing it as a "New World". Vespucci's letter, first printed c. 1503 under the title ''Mundus Novus'', became a publishing sensation in Europe. In 1507, Vespucci's letters were reprinted in the volume ''Cosmographiae Introductio'' put out by a German academy, which contains the famous map by Martin Waldseemüller with the Brazilian landmass designated by the name ''America''. The accompanying text notes "I do not see what right any one would have to object to calling this part, after Americus who discovered it and who is a man of intelligence". In a similar spirit, a map by the Genoese cartographer Visconte Maggiolo, dated 1504, Brazil appears designated as ''Tera de Gonsalvo Coigo vocatur Santa Croxe'' ("Land of Gonçalo Coelho called Santa Cruz"), a reference to Gonçalo Coelho, presumed to be the captain of the aforementioned 1501 mapping expedition (and certainly of its 1503-04 follow-up).〔A. Teixeira da Mota (1969) ''Novos documentos sobre uma expedição de Gonçalo Coelho ao Brasil, entre 1503 e 1505''. Lisbon: Junta de Investigações do Ultramar.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Name of Brazil」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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