Preface

I cannot quite believe that I have written a book about a map. It all began seven years ago, when I casually pulled a book off a shelf. Back in the spring of 2011, when I was idly browsing the stacks of a local university library for something interesting to read. My eyes happened to fall upon a slim published volume of papers presented at the “Vinland Map Conference” held in 1966. At that time I was only vaguely conscious of the existence of the Vinland Map, although I had heard of it, and had some idea that it had been discredited as a forgery. The detailed level of technical discussion in the book surprised me. It was clear that, forgery or not, a good number of reputable scholars had once taken it seriously.

Delving further into the subject online, I was intrigued to learn that neither the map itself, nor the genuine medieval manuscripts with which it had been bound, had any documented history prior to their appearance on the international book market in 1957. Now, it seemed to me that, even if the map itself were a forgery, some trace of the other documents might have been left on the historical record. From what I had read, one of the associated documents, the Tartar Relation, was a very scarce text; its medieval author, Friar C. de Bridia, was unknown in any other connection. So I typed the search term “C. de Bridia” into Google Books, to see if the name had appeared anywhere in print prior to 1957. After sorting the results in chronological order, I was startled to discover that the search had brought up references to “C. de Bridia” in two nineteenth-century publications.

With just a few minutes on a keyboard and a few clicks of a mouse, I had stumbled upon new — and potentially exciting — information about the case. That evening, as far as I could tell, I was the only person in the world aware of these pre-1957 references to the medieval friar. These references, I knew, could hold the key to resolving the mystery surrounding the provenance of the Vinland Map documents.

A second discovery followed within a few days. After several hours of study, I made a finding that all previous researchers, in five decades of controversy over the map, had somehow overlooked. The Vinland Map is known to share certain key features with a genuine medieval map: the circular world map of Andrea Bianco, dating from 1436. This dependence has long been recognised. What no-one had previously realised is that the Vinland Map was not in fact copied directly from the 1436 Bianco world map. Instead, the forger was unwise enough to take an eighteenth-century engraving of the Bianco map as his template. The engraving departs from the original in a number of respects, and since the Vinland Map replicates these errors, it cannot possibly be a genuine medieval artifact. The importance of this finding rests not so much in the fact that it discredits the Vinland Map — for the majority of scholars, the map is already discredited on other grounds — but rather in the troubling question that it raises. How could such a glaringly obvious objection to the map’s authenticity have passed unnoticed by the experts in fifty years of impassioned debate?

Another flash of realisation involved the purported medieval inscription on the back of the map, which had puzzled researchers for decades. Suspicions had been voiced over the first word, delineacio, which appeared to indicate the presence of some sort of drawing overleaf (presumably the map); but excising that word on its own simply could not be made to yield a meaningful inscription. It struck me that the line would make perfect sense if, in addition to delineacio, a couple of words which follow could also be excluded. Reaching for a copy of the Yale study, I found the photograph of the inscription, and it was obvious within seconds that I had uncovered the forger’s precise tactic. Spurious words had indeed been added to a genuine medieval inscription in order to obliterate its original (and very mundane) meaning. It is actually possible to see this simply by turning the page with the reproduction in the Yale book: the genuine portion of the inscription shows through in reverse, at the top left of the map; the forged portion is barely visible. To have an insight visually confirmed in this way was very satisfying, particularly since the source of the insight was one of the descriptions written prior to 1957. It meant that the writer of the description must have seen the inscription in its original form, before it was altered; which means, in turn, that he must have set eyes upon the very piece of parchment on which the map now appears. And this is of considerable significance, since it did not mention the presence of a map.

From one of the newly-discovered nineteenth-century sources it became clear that the two medieval documents associated today with the Vinland Map were once in the possession of Zaragoza Cathedral Library. This led me to investigate an extensive series of thefts from that institution which took place in the 1950s. Researchers have long been aware of the fact that the Vinland Map trail leads back to a dealer in antiquarian books named Enzo Ferrajoli, and that Ferrajoli was convicted of stealing books from Zaragoza. The extent of the scandal, however, has not always been recognised, and its central significance to the story is often overlooked. I am the first author to have utilised the British Museum file on the thefts, and in this book I identify, for the first time, the Zaragozan provenance of a number of items in institutional collections. I have ventured to trespass upon the domain of experts in attempting to untangle the threads of this dismal affair.

There is a considerable amount of detailed analysis in the pages which follow, much of it new. (For example, my book contains the first detailed critique of the late E.G.R. Taylor’s trenchant views on the Vinland Map.) Whilst I have made every effort to be as accurate and clear as possible, I cannot pretend that the material always makes for exciting reading. If readers feel that the codicological, scientific and geographical discussion becomes too arcane in places, I can only plead in excuse that the thicket of complexity which has grown up around the topic is not of my making. The issues raised deserve a leisurely dissection, and they receive it here.

There are many people who could have vastly improved and enriched this book with their assistance and advice, and who doubtless would have done so generously, if asked. However, I made a conscious decision at an early stage not to seek the guidance of professionals in any of the fields covered by the study. The reason is simple: I am not an academic, and I do not pretend that my book is a piece of academic scholarship. It is the work of an amateur researcher, and I have thought it appropriate, for better or worse, to keep it that way. I also wished to avoid becoming overly identified with one side of the acrimonious partisan debate over the map’s authenticity. While my findings support the position of those who have maintained over the years that the map is not authentic, I wanted to be free to criticise instances of dubious argumentation on either side, and freely make my own errors (which readers are cordially invited to correct).

In line with standard practice, the bibliography of the present study lists works referred to in the main text and endnotes. Many of these works make no direct reference to the Vinland Map. Conversely, a good number of books and articles which feature the map have not found their way into the bibliography. Readers who would like to have a dedicated Vinland Map reading list should consult Leon Koczy, “The Vinland Map,” Antemurale 14 (1970): 163–70; Wilcomb E. Washburn, ed., Proceedings of the Vinland Map Conference (Chicago: University of Chicago Press for the Newberry Library, 1971), 155–81, and Sandra J. Lamprecht, comp., “The Vinland Map: A Comprehensive, Annotated Bibliography of Works in English, 1965–2000,” Pre-Columbiana: A Journal of Long-Distance Contacts 2(1) (June 2000): 57–84.

Despite the vast number of references to the map in books and periodical literature, the Vinland Map has given rise to only one full-length scholarly work. Kirsten A. Seaver’s treatment of the subject in Maps, Myths and Men: The Story of the Vínland Map (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2004), in particular her claim to have identified the forger, has dominated the field for over a decade. Since I have found it necessary to dissent from a number of Kirsten Seaver’s conclusions, I would like to place on record here my appreciation of the careful scholarship in constant evidence in Maps, Myths and Men. I believe there are few people in the world who could honestly claim, after reading it, that they had learned nothing.

As I write these lines (June 2018), there is evidence of renewed interest in the Vinland Map. The map has just gone on display at a special exhibition at Mystic Seaport Museum, Connecticut. Fresh non-destructive scientific tests have been conducted by Yale’s Institute for the Preservation of Cultural Heritage, and a new book on the map is said to be in preparation (Mike Cummings, “Yale putting high-tech tests to its controversial Vinland Map,” YaleNews website, February 28, 2018).

In another recent development (March 2018), a copy of an unpublished 2014 report to the Beinecke Library has been placed online by its authors. The report describes technological efforts to improve the legibility of handwritten text on a blank free endpaper of the binding used to cover the Vinland Map and Tartar Relation manuscripts; the purpose of making it available to a wider...