The Zeno Narrative and the Zeno Map

Record summary

The Zeno narrative and accompanying map claim to preserve voyages by Venetian brothers in northern waters, describing islands and regions including Frisland, Iceland, Greenland, and a land called Icaria. The material became important in debates over early European knowledge of the North Atlantic. Historians have identified serious problems, including retrospective editing, geographic distortions, and possible fabrication by the sixteenth-century publisher. It is therefore a particularly useful hoax-and-transmission lead, but not reliable evidence for a fourteenth-century expedition or extraordinary northern geography.