The Zeno Map
A glance at the Zeno map ([Fig. 19]) discloses a good approximation to the general outline, trend, and taper of Greenland, with certain features which imply information. For a long time it was thought that no earlier source existed from which this could have been drawn by Zeno the compiler. But of later years other fifteenth-century maps showing Greenland have been discovered in various libraries, notably four by Nordenskiöld,[228] out of which or out of others like them Zeno could certainly have gleaned all that he needed for judicious copying. In particular the maps of Donnus Nicolaus Germanus (1466 to 1474, or a little later; e. g. [Fig. 17]), elaborated from the map of Claudius Clavus (1427; [Fig. 16]), seem to supply the chief features of the Zeno exhibition.[229] Sharing an error common to Clavus and all successors of his school, Zeno connected Greenland to Europe. He also represented its eastern coast as habitable at the extreme upper end. It is true that a visitor to the real surviving Greenland settlement about Ericsfiord probably would not learn the facts about these matters, so that his misinformation is no disproof of the visits of the older Zeni to that country. On the other hand, it would be difficult to point to any convincing evidence that either of them was ever there. Kohl suggests[230] that the fisherman’s story may be a mere reflection of the general American knowledge of Greenlanders, and this might call for the presence of one of the Zeni in Greenland to hear the story. But, if the Norse of Greenland knew anything about Newfoundland or Labrador, they could hardly have credited and passed along these word pictures of cities, libraries, and kings. The only thing like internal corroboration is in the geography of Estotiland and Drogio.
As Nicolò Zeno followed the disciples of Claudius Clavus in outlining Greenland, so he took for his guide Mattheus Prunes’ map of 1553[231] in dealing with the more eastern islands. Podanda or Porlanda (Pomona, the main island of the Orkneys) and Neome (Fair Island) are in both (Figs. 19 and 12). Prunes displaces these islands to a position west, instead of south, of southern Shetland (Estiland or Esthlanda), and Zeno simply carries them both still farther west, while moving them southward; but his Neome is still in the latitude of the lower end of Shetland. Long before the time of either of them, the Faroe Islands had been shown as one territory—see the Ysferi (Faroe Islands) of the eleventh-century map of the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum, reproduced by Santarem.[232] The main islands are in fact barely severed from each other by a thread of water.
Frisland
It was, and is, so common to use “land” as a final syllable for island names (witness Iceland, Shetland, and the rest) that “Ferisland” would easily be derived from the form of the name last given and would be as readily contracted into “Frisland.” We find the latter (Frislanda), indeed, on the map of Cantino (1502)[233] and in the life of Columbus ascribed to his son Ferdinand.[234] There seems no doubt of its very early use for a northern island or islands; apparently primarily for the Faroe group, often blended as one island.
But there seems to have been some confusion in men’s minds between Iceland and Frisland as northern fishing centers and neighbors of like conditions. Thus the portolan atlas known as Egerton MS. 2803, contains two maps[235] (one shown in [Fig. 8]) naming Iceland “Fislanda,” and the notable Catalan map of about 1480[236] ([Fig. 7]), first copied by Nordenskiöld, which shows Greenland as an elongated rectangular “Illa Verde” and Brazil in the place later given to Estotiland, also depicts a large insular “Fixlanda,” which is surely Iceland, if any faith may be put in general outline and the arrangement of islets offshore. Prunes (1553; [Fig. 12]) substantially reproduces it, with the same name and apparently the same meaning. Zeno ([Fig. 19]) follows him closely in area and aspect but draws also an elongated Iceland to the northward, the latter island trending southwestward in imitation of Greenland and seeming to derive its geography therefrom. This version of Iceland was probably suggested by one of the Nicolaus Germanus maps above referred to.
Thus Zeno has two great islands, Frisland and Iceland, the former being several times larger than Shetland and many times larger than Orkney. His Frisland gets its name from the Faroes, its area and outline from Iceland; it is located south of Iceland, where there never was anything but waste water. No such large island, distinct from Iceland, ever existed at the north. Certainly, as shown, it is a mythical island indeed.
Major stoutly argued that any derelictions of the map are to be explained as the defects of age and rottenness, unskillfully cobbled by a later hand. This sounds reasonable to one who has seen how the changes of time deface these old memorials and how easily outlines and much more may be misread. But in point of fact the map as we have it answers to the narrative singularly well. Any blurs or lacunae which needed restoration must have occurred in very fortunate places. Iceland, Shetland, Greenland, Scotland, Estotiland, and Drogio are all not very far from where they should be. The Orkneys and Fair Island, if too far west in fact, are only far enough to suit the tale, for when Antonio sails eastward he comes to them and knows he has passed east of Iceland, a reflection more likely to occur if the interval were rather small than if it were very great.
Icaria
Again, when Earl Zichmni and Antonio Zeno with their little flotilla, fired by the fisherman’s American experiences, strike westward from Frisland for Estotiland they, indeed, do not reach that goal but do attain by accident the mysterious Icaria and find themselves where Greenland can be and is reached without much difficulty. Now, on the map ([Fig. 19]), Icaria, about the size of Shetland, is the most westerly of all the islands not distinctly American. Draw a straight line from Iceland to Estotiland and another from the center of Frisland to Cape Hwarf near the lower end of Greenland, and Icaria lies at the intersection. Granting the rest of the story, it is shown where they might very well have stumbled upon it in trying to go farther west.