Zeno card

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Reproduction of the Zeno card from a book from 1793

The Zeno Map is a map of the North Atlantic that was first published in Venice in 1558 by Nicolo Zeno, the descendant of one of the Zeno brothers of the same name .

Nicolo Zeno published the card along with a series of letters he allegedly discovered in a storeroom at his parents' home in Venice. According to Zeno, the map and letters dated around 1400 and described a journey that the Zeno brothers would have made in the 1390s under the leadership of a prince named Zichmni. They would have crossed the North Atlantic and reached North America.

Today most historians assume that the map and the letters are forgeries that the younger Nicolo wrote to claim the discovery of America afterwards for Venice.

This is supported by a few non-existent islands that are shown on the map. One of these islands is the phantom island of Frisland , on which the Zenos allegedly stayed for some time and which was initially interpreted as the Faroe Islands .

It is now believed that the map was based on various earlier maps of the 16th century, in particular:

literature

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  1. ^ Gray, Johnathan "Dead Men's Secrets"
  • Cooper, Robert LD (Ed.) The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers Nicolo & Antonio Zeno to the Northern Seas in the XIVth Century . Masonic Publishing Co. 2004. ISBN 0-9544268-2-7 .