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The name of the city of Buenos Aires ((:ˈbwenoˈsaiɾes)), the capital of Argentina, means "Good Airs" or "Fair Winds" in Spanish. There are other places, mostly in the Americas, that go by the same name. ==Sardinian origin== When the Aragonese conquered Cagliari, Sardinia from the Pisans in 1324, they established their headquarters on top of a hill that overlooked the city. The hill was known to them as ''Buen Ayre'' (or "Bonaria" in the local language), as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city (the Castle area), which is adjacent to swampland. "Foul smell" is another word for malaria ("mal aria" = bad air), since at that time people believed the air to cause the illness. Swamps are the breeding ground of Anopheles mosquitoes, the vectors of malaria which plagued Sardinia until the swamps were drained and treated with DDT in the 20th century. During the siege of Cagliari, the Aragonese built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill. In 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea. The statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors, especially Andalusians, venerated this image and frequently invoked the "Fair Winds" to aid them in their navigation and prevent shipwrecks. A sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be later erected in Seville (). In 1536, Spanish seaman Pedro de Mendoza established a fort and port in current-day San Telmo (about one kilometre south of the current Buenos Aires city centre) and called it ''Santa María del Buen Aire'' ("Our Lady of the Good Air"). The city name was chosen by the chaplain of Mendoza's expedition, a devotee of the Virgin of Buen Ayre. (Another version () says that one Leonardo Gribeo, who had witnessed the original miracle, was on Mendoza's crew.) The naming of Buenos Aires after the Sardinian virgin also suggested itself because Buenos Aires lies immediately beyond the southern limit of the South-American range of Anopheles species and was thus one of the first malaria-free ports for ships coming from the north.〔Charles C Mann (2011). 1493. Random House, New York, NY.〕 Mendoza’s settlement soon came under attack by indigenous peoples, and was abandoned in 1541. A second (and permanent) settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción (now the capital of Paraguay). Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city ''Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Nuestra Señora la Virgen María de los Buenos Aires'' ("City of the Most Holy Trinity and Port of Saint Mary of the Good Airs"). The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century. 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「Names of Buenos Aires」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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