Voyage of the Zeno brothers
They came to prominence in 1558, when their descendant, Nicolò Zeno the Younger, published a map and a series of letters purporting to describe an exploration made by the brothers of the north Atlantic and Arctic waters in the 1390s.
Widely accepted at the time of publication, the map was incorporated into the works of leading cartographers, including Gerardus Mercator.
Modern historians and geographers have disputed the veracity of the map and the described voyages, with some accusing the younger Zeno of forgery.
[5] In 1989, Italian scholar Giorgio Padoan published a study, suggesting that there is some authenticity in their travels and that Nicolò is not to be found in any document between the years 1396–1400 (so he could have been at least in Iceland).
Padoan studied the "detailed descriptions that could have not been borrowed by others", as geographer Von Humboldt stated, in the book written by the younger Nicolò about his father.
[7] After finding it too well-defended, he attacks seven islands along its eastern side: Bres, Talas, Broas, Iscant, Trans, Mimant, and Damberc.
According to the alternative interpretation cited above, in which the travellers had yet to leave Estlanda, the subsequent destination is in fact Iceland, explaining the presence of geothermal heating and other observations.
"Estotiland" appears on the Zeno map ostensibly on the western side of the Atlantic Ocean, in the approximate location of what is now known to be Labrador, on the northeast coast of North America.
[16] Contemporary Venetian court documents place Nicolò as undergoing trial for embezzlement in 1394 for his actions as military governor of Modone and Corone in Greece from 1390–1392.
According to The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, "the Zeno affair remains one of the most preposterous and at the same time one of the most successful fabrications in the history of exploration.
"[16] Herbert Wrigley Wilson described and analysed the story at length in The Royal Navy, a History from the Earliest Times to the Present, and was sceptical about its veracity, noting "At the date when the work was published Venice was extremely eager to claim for herself some share in the credit of Columbus's discoveries as against her old rival Genoa, from whom Columbus had sprung.
"[17] Di Robilant disagrees, stating that the younger Nicolò was "a first-class muddler, not a fablemonger", whose inaccuracy was the result of second-hand retelling that still contains much of the truth of his forebears' voyages.
[3]: 194 Most historians regard the map and accompanying narrative as a hoax,[18] perpetrated by the younger Zeno to make a retroactive claim for Venice as having discovered the New World before Christopher Columbus.
The evidence against the authenticity of the map is based largely on the appearance of many phantom islands in the North Atlantic and off the coast of Iceland.
