Island
Insula Herculis
Asinaria (Barrington) · Asinara (Miller)
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Insula Herculis is drawn as an island off Sardinia, and its label is oddly damaged: the first surviving letter seems not to begin the word, so scholars restore the island word in full, though it is usually abbreviated, and a flourish on the last letter may stand for a missing ending. The name means the island of Hercules, the hero whose labours carried him to the far western edge of the known world. It is Asinara, off the north-western tip of Sardinia. The Roman writer Pliny knew two islands of Hercules here, but only the much larger one is shown, as in the geographer Ptolemy.