DISCOVERY REVEALS MEDIEVAL MONK MIGHT HAVE KNEW ABOUT AMERICAS BEFORE COLUMBUS ARRIVAL

Norse mariners, or Vikings, are thought to have been the first Europeans to set foot on American soil. Parts of the Canadian shoreline were explored and colonised by Norsemen in the tenth century, and they stayed there for hundreds of years. Scholars believed that until Columbus's explorations, Southern Europe was mainly unknown, despite Scandinavia's knowledge of western territories. The discovery of a 14th-century Italian document that mentions "Markland" (possibly referring to Labrador or Newfoundland) suggests that at least one monk was aware of the continent's existence.

Paolo Chiesa, a professor of Medieval Latin Literature at Milan University, and his graduate students made the discovery. Chiesa had located the only copy of a text called Cronica universalis that still existed. The history of the book is complex. When the collection was liquidated following Napoleon's conquest, the document—which had previously been owned by the basilica of Sant'Ambrogio in Milan—was taken out. It made its way to New York somehow.

Galvano Fiamma, a medieval Dominican, wrote the book. Chiesa was permitted to take research photos of the book by the private collector. A graduate student called Giulia Greco was translating the pages from Latin when she came upon an intriguing section that came after Iceland and Greenland were mentioned. "There is another land, called Marckalada, where giants reside; there are buildings with such enormous slabs of stone that nobody could build them save big giants," the book said. In addition, there are a lot of birds, animals, and green trees.

This passage is described as "astonishing" by Chiesa. There is proof that this particular monk knew about North America's existence long before Columbus did. He got his expertise from “sailors who frequent the waters of Denmark and Norway,” the priest continues, who must have told the stories to the sailors of the port of Genoa. Fiamma most likely attended school at the ports, which might have introduced him to the people who taught him.

This intriguing sentence begs a number of questions. To what extent was Markland known? Why is what is now known as North America not depicted on any of the Italian maps from that era? Finally, did Columbus know what was to the west since he came from Genoa? Future studies could reveal more about what medieval southern Europeans knew about America, even though these issues remain mysteries today.