Letters and Map
Nicolò and Antonio are notable for a number of letters and map (called the Zeno map) published in the year 1558 by one of their descendants, also named Nicolò Zeno. This descendant was a historian with other published works on the history of Venice. The letters, allegedly written by the brothers around 1400, describe a voyage of exploration that they say they underook throughout the North Atlantic (and by some interpretations to North America), under the command of a prince named Zichmni (who some have identified as Henry Sinclair).
The letters and accompanying map are controversial and are regarded by at least one historian as a hoax, either by the Zeno brothers themselves or by their descendant who wrote a narrative which he said was based on what was left of letters that he had torn up as a boy.
Read more about this topic: Zeno Brothers
Famous quotes containing the words letters and/or map:
“There are other letters for the child to learn than those which Cadmus invented. The Spaniards have a good term to express this wild and dusky knolwedge, Grammatica parda, tawny grammar, a kind of mother-wit derived from that same leopard to which I have referred.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Unless, governor, teacher inspector, visitor,
This map becomes their window and these windows
That open on their lives like crouching tombs
Break, O break open,”
—Stephen Spender (1909–1995)