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An analysis of ancient writings shows that Christopher Columbus's Italian hometown knew about America 150 years before the infamous 'discovery.'
Galvaneus Flamma is a Milanese friar who transcribed and detailed a circa 1345 document. Professor Paolo Chiesa, Medieval Latin Literature expert, has made an "astonishing discovery" of an "exceptional passage that refers to North America.
Chiesa claims that the ancient essay first discovered in 2013 suggests that Genoa sailors were aware of this land. It is recognizable as Markland/Marckalada by some Icelandic sources, and recognized by scholars as being part of the Atlantic coast (usually assumed to be Labrador, or Newfoundland).
The discovery was published in Terrae Incognitae (peer-reviewed journal). It comes before Columbus Day 2021 which is also known as Indigenous Peoples Day in many US states. These findings fuel the ongoing question of "What, exactly, did Columbus expect" to find when he set sail across the ocean. These findings come after a period when his statues were beheaded, covered in red paint and pulled down. They were then set on fire and thrown into lakes.
Professor Chiesa, who is from the Department of Literary Studies, Philology and Linguistics of the University of Milan, states that "we are in the presence of a first reference to America's continent, albeit as an embryonic form in the Mediterranean area."
Galvaneus, a Dominican friar, lived in Milan. He was also connected to a family that held the lordship over the city.
His literary works were primarily historical in Latin. His testimony is invaluable for information about Milanese current facts, which he has firsthand knowledge.
Cronica universalis is Chiesa's analysis. It is one of his last works, perhaps the last. It attempts to trace the history of the entire world from the time it was created to the moment it was published.
Professor Chiesa interprets and analyzes the document and shows how Genoa would have served as a "gateway" to news. He also demonstrates how Galvaneus may have heard rumors from seafarers about lands to North-West for possible commercial benefit.
Marckalada was not classified as a new country at that time because "these rumors were too vague for consistency in cartographic and scholarly representations," explains the professor.
However, Chiesa states that Cronica universalis "brings unrivalled evidence to the speculation, that news about America, derived from Nordic source, circulated in Italy one-and-half centuries before Columbus."
He added: "What makes Marckalada's passage exceptional is its geographic provenance: it is not the Nordic region, as in other mentions, but northern Italy.
Galvaneus describes the Marckalada as 'rich in tree'. It is not unlike the Grnlendinga Saga's wooded Markland, where animals live.
These details could be considered standard and distinctive of any land, but they aren't trivial because the common feature in northern regions is to have bleak and barren. This is what Greenland looks like according to Galvaneus, or Iceland as described by Adam of Bremen."
Professor Chiesa believes that we should "trust" Cronica Universalis. In the document Galvaneus states where he heard oral stories and backs up his claims with elements from legends or real accounts. These elements are derived from previous traditions on different lands and mixed together to assign a place.
Professor Chiesa states, "I don't see any reason to doubt him." He also adds that "it has been long noticed that the 14th-century portolan charts (nautical) drawn in Genoa in Genoa offer a more detailed geographical representation of northern Europe, which could have been achieved by direct contact with those regions.
"These ideas about the north-west were likely to have reached Genoa via the shipping routes to Britain and the North Sea continental coasts.
We don't have any evidence that Italian or Catalan seafarers reached Iceland or Greenland during that period, but we do know that they were able to purchase goods from northern Europe that could be used to transport to the Mediterranean.
Galvaneus mentions marinarii as a possible explanation for this dynamic. The Genoese may have brought back to their home scattered information about these lands from the northern harbors of British, Danish and Norwegian sailors who were trading with them.
Cronica universalis is a Latin text that is not yet published. However, a new edition is being planned in the context of an educational and scholarly program at the University of Milan.
Continue exploring the Countdown to find out where Columbus originated
More information: Paolo Chiesa and Marckalada: Terrae Incognitae (2021), The First Mentioning of America in the Mediterranean Area (c.1340), Paolo Chiesa and Marckalada: First Mention of America within the Mediterranean Area (c.1340), (2021). DOI: 10.1080/00822884.2021.1943792
