Although there are no proofs that the "island of Seven Cities" actually existed, the belief of their existence, some tentative expeditions and brief unconfirmed visual sightings of Atlantic islands, fostered legends during the European Middle Ages. Consequently many of the Medieval maps and charts that showed the Ocean Sea (the Atlantic Ocean) identified an island (or islands) represented in different positions or forms. The island of Brasil and/or Antillia (from the Brendan context) and the island of Sete Cidades, were usual geographic references that persisted in the proto-geography of the Atlantic.