[1291.] Doria and Vivaldi, Genoese, undertook a voyage down the African coast with a view of reaching India, and were last heard of at a place called Gozora. On this voyage, which rests on several authorities, has been founded a claim that the Italians preceded the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 99-110, concludes from an examination of all the documents that there are no grounds for this claim, although admitting the voyage and its purpose, in fact everything but its success. Gozora was probably Cape Non. Kohl regards this expedition as uncertain. One of the documents gives the date as 1281; from which circumstance Kohl and Humboldt erroneously make of it two voyages. D'Avesac, in Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 1845, tom. cviii. p. 45, has the date 1285. Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 30-1, speaks of Genoese expeditions and the rediscovery of the Canaries during this century.
[1306.] On a map made by the Venetian Sanuto in 1306, Africa is represented as surrounded by the sea, but there is no evidence that the geography of that region is derived from any actual observations. The map simply shows one of the two theories then held respecting the shape of southern Africa.
[1332 et seq.] Sir John Mandeville, an English physician, between 1332 and 1366, travelled in eastern parts, including the Holy Land, India, and China. On his return he wrote in three languages an account of his adventures, with descriptions of the countries visited. See Hakluyt Soc., Divers Voy., Introd. p. xliii. His work corroborates that of Marco Polo, and although full of exaggerations, and probably tampered with by copyists in respect to adventures and anecdotes, "yet," says Irving, "his accounts of the countries which he visited have been found far more veracious than had been imagined." Purchas, His Pilgrimes, vol. iii. pp. 128-38; Travels of Sir John Mandeville, London, 1725.
[1341 et seq.] As we have seen, the Canaries were known to the ancients, and made by Ptolemy the western limit of the world; but subsequently they were nearly forgotten until rediscovered and visited, perhaps several times, toward the middle of the fourteenth century, by the Portuguese. There is a definite account of one of these voyages. Two vessels were sent there by the King of Portugal in 1341, and nearly all the islands of the group visited, but no settlement was made. Before this, Luis de la Cerda represented to the Pope the existence of such islands, and received by a bull of lordship of them, with the title of Prince of Fortune. The king of Portugal claimed in 1345 to have sent out previous expeditions to the islands. The project of Cerda proved a failure and no colony was founded. Voyages to the Canaries became quite frequent before the end of the century. Galvano, Discoveries, London, 1862; and in Collection of Curious Voyages, London, 1812, p. 10; Muñoz, Hist. Nuevo Mundo, pp. 30-1; Kunstmann, Entdeckung Am., pp. 1-4. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 139-45, dates the bull 1334.
[1346.] In August, 1346, Jaime Ferrer, a Catalan navigator, sailed from Majorca in the Mediterranean to search down the African coast for the Rujaura, or River of Gold, and never was heard from. This is proved by a document in the Genoese archives, and by an inscription on a Catalan map of 1375. Major shows this to have been an expedition in search of an unknown or imaginary river of gold, whose supposed existence rested on ancient traditions that a branch of the Nile flowed into the Atlantic, and which belief was strengthened by the gold brought from Guinea by the Arabs. Humboldt understands this Rujaura to have been the Rio d'Ouro below Cape Bojador, an inlet named later by the Portuguese; and he also states that Ferrer actually reached that point; but of this there seems to be no evidence.
[1351 et seq.] The Azores appear to have been discovered by the Portuguese early in this half century, appearing on a map of 1351. There is however no account of the voyage by which this discovery was made, although there is a tradition of a Greek who was there cast away in 1370. On a Genoese map of the same date the Madeira group is shown, having probably been discovered by Portuguese ships under Genoese captains early in the fourteenth century.
[1364.] By Villault de Bellefond, Relation des costes d'Afrique, Paris, 1669, it is stated that the Dieppese in 1364 made a voyage round Cape Verde, and far beyond, establishing trading-posts, which were repeatedly visited in the following years. On this account, repeated by many writers—Estancelin, Recherches, p. 72; Humboldt, Exam. Crit., tom. i. p. 285—is founded the French claim of having preceded the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador and occupying the gold coast. Major, Prince Henry, pp. 117-33, maintains by strong proofs that this voyage rests on no good authority, and that the French occupation of that coast is of much later date.
THE ZENI.
[1380.] Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian, sailing northward for England, was driven in a storm still farther north, and landed on some islands in possession of the Northmen, which he named Friesland, but which are supposed to have been the Faroe group. Kindly received by the people, he sent to Venice for his brother, and both spent there the rest of their lives, making frequent excursions to neighboring islands, and gaining a knowledge of other more distant lands known to the Northmen, including two countries called Drogeo and Estotiland, lying to the southward of Greenland, which countries the Frieslanders claimed once to have visited. Nicolo died in 1395, and Antonio in 1404, after writing an account of their adventures, which, with a chart, he sent to a third brother, Carlo. The manuscript was preserved by the family and first published under the title Dei Commentarii del viaggio in Persia, etc., Venezia, 1558. After passing the ordeal of criticism the work is generally accepted as a faithful report of actual occurrences, though embellished, like all writings of the time, with fable. Dello Scoprimento dell' Isola Frislanda Eslanda, en Grovelanda, et Icaria, in Ramusio, tom. ii. fol. 230-4; Hakluyt's Voy., vol. iii. pp. 121-8; Bos, Leben der See-Helden, pp. 523-7; Cancellieri, Notizie di Colombo, pp. 48-9; Lelewel, Géog. du moyen âge, tom. iii. pp. 74 et seq. Irving, however, Columbus, vol. iii. pp. 435-40, sees in this voyage only another of "the fables circulated shortly after the discovery of Columbus, to arrogate to other nations and individuals the credit of the achievement," while Zahrtmann, Remarks on the Voy. to the Northern Hemisphere, ascribed to the Zeni of Venice, in Journal of the Geog. Soc., vol. v. pp. 102-28, London, 1835, claims that the whole account is a fable.
The chart by the brothers Zeni, published with the manuscript, is of great importance as the first known map which shows any part of America. It contains internal evidences of its own authenticity, one of which is that Greenland is much better drawn than could have been done from other or extraneous sources even in 1558. I give from Kohl's fac-simile a copy of the map, omitting a few of the names.