False maps of the world. Fictitious lands, seas, and straits were verified by the Age of Discovery.

Today, a ship journey can land you on land or on an unknown island due to GPS signal disruption or a satellite outage. In 1558, the Venetian Nicolò Zeno drew an island in the Atlantic and convinced a considerable number of explorers that Frislandia was inhabited. Marco Polo, who supposedly explored the length and breadth of China, surpassed him in his stories. Herodotus, the ancient historian and geographer, was more precise in his geographical descriptions. The Phoenicians were more modest and pragmatic.

The Phoenicians didn’t draw maps, but they discovered new lands, even venturing beyond the Mediterranean Sea. They reached from the ports of present-day Lebanon, beyond the Iberian Peninsula, into the Atlantic, to the Canary Islands and Madeira. They are said to have sailed around Africa and certainly successfully established themselves in Sicily, Malta, Corsica, and Sardinia. The Phoenicians successfully colonized the coast of North Africa and founded Carthage, which dominated the political and economic spheres of the time. And most importantly, they implemented widespread currency. They introduced alphabetic writing. They perfected the construction of merchant ships. Unfortunately, they left no maps behind. And here, a Venetian surpassed them.

Zeno of Venice invented Frisland

Zeno of Venice was even better than Marco Polo. Marco Polo was a storyteller, and Zeno painted the island of Frislandia around known lands and convinced doubters that two of his ancestors, Antonio and Nicolò, had visited the island. They supposedly saw the island with their own eyes and visited its cities in the 1380s. The cities were, of course, given Italian names, so the Venetians, and others, were very fond of the island. A replica of the map can be seen in Gdańsk at the FAKE FOR REAL exhibition. A HISTORY OF FORGERIES AND FORGERIES, at the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk.

“Each of the objects presented in the exhibition holds an intriguing story of deception – from the erased names of Roman emperors, through the forged lives of medieval saints, fantastical accounts of journeys that never took place, to the times of World War II, when the Allies used a fictitious army as part of their war strategy, and counterfeits of modern products,” explains Joanna Urbanek, curator of the exhibition.

Septentrional partivm nova tabvla, by Nicolo Zeno, depicting “Frislandia”, 1561. Source: Public Domain

The Venetians also supported Zeno in another manipulation, which implied that the Venetians had discovered the New World. Before Columbus crossed the Atlantic, Zeno had drawn the shores of Estotilandia on the edges of the map. Zeno described in detail in his 1558 work “Della Scoprimento” how the Venetians bravely discovered new lands before navigators from other nations reached them. They were not the only ones delighted with Zeno’s “discoveries.” Many of his contemporaries readily accepted Zeno’s maps and tales of new lands as certain. Later imitators also found support, reinforcing the belief that Zeno’s maps and descriptions were authentic.

In the mid-19th century, English scholar Richard Henry Major deemed Zeno’s story “authentic… a true and valuable tale,” and geologist William Herbert Hobbs declared in 1951 that the Zeno brothers were “honest and quite competent explorers.” As late as 1989, Venetian philologist Giorgio Padoan argued that it was not a forgery and that the Venetians were the first to reach the New World before other Europeans, recalls Dr. Genevieve Carlton of Northwestern University.

According to Zeno, the rectangular island, dotted with towns with Italian-sounding names such as Cabru and Sorand, lay south of Iceland, bordering Norway to the east and the mysterious Estotiland to the west. Gerard Mercator concluded that Frislandia must also be included on his map among the lands surrounding the North Pole.

Ortelius Preceded Bering’s Maritime Discoveries

Abraham Ortelius was a renowned cartographer, geographer, and cosmographer from Antwerp. He lived and worked in the Spanish Netherlands. He created the first modern atlas, the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum. Along with Mercator, Ortelius was one of the founders of the Netherlandish school of cartography and geography. During the Age of Discovery, maps became an important source of knowledge about new lands and seas. Ortelius’s atlas of 1570 is considered the official beginning of the Golden Age of Netherlandish cartography. He also proposed the idea that the continents were connected before they formed their present configuration on the globe.

Strait of Anián, Ortelius Map, Source: Public Domain

But the semi-mythical Strait of Anián also appeared on his map around 1560. Early medieval cartographers believed, or rather intuited, that there was a strait between North America and Asia, separating the continents. They believed it allowed access to the Northwest Passage from the Arctic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Indeed, it was discovered that the continents were separated by water. The passage between the seas was identified in 1728. More precisely, the strait, intuitively located on maps, was first discovered by Semyon Dezhnev in 1648. However, it was not until the second expedition of Vitus Bering, known as the Great Northern Expedition, that it was precisely described.

The Dane Vitus Jonassen Bering (known to Russian sailors as Ivan Ivanovich) entered the service of Peter I, who commissioned him to explore Siberia and determine whether a land connection existed between Asia and North America. During the first expedition, it was determined that Siberia did not connect with America. At the request of Captain James Cook, also a great explorer, the strait was named the Bering Strait. Until then, the Strait of Anian had been drawn on maps by feel. Sometimes it was located near the present-day Bering Strait, but sometimes it was placed near California by “intuitive” cartographers.

It is worth noting that the second Russian exploration provided cartographers with quite precise information. This allowed the maps to include as much precise information as possible about the Siberian territories and the waters to the east and north of this region. Bering’s team of scientists included Semyon Chelyuskin, after whom the cape he described was named. Cape Chelyuskin is the northernmost point of Eurasia. Bering was accompanied on the expedition by Khariton and Dmitry Laptev. Both scientists described with considerable precision the outlines of the Arctic coast and parts of the continental shores washed by the waters of the Northern Ocean, now known as the Laptev Sea.

Frisland Island on Mercator’s map, Source: Public Domain

Sailors and explorers fantasized not only on maps and in the pages of books. The above are just a few examples. Sailors’ tales featured incredible creatures that sank ships. For centuries, sailors were, of course, lured by sirens, whose charm and angelic song enchanted sailors and lured their ships to the rocks. Today’s maps have been hidden away in tablets and computers. And all we have left are nautical tales, which remain an integral part of sailing encounters to this day. And when inspiration fails, the stories run out, and the GPS turns off, it’s time for sea shanties.

The exhibition “Fake for Real: A History of Forgeries and Forgeries” was organized by the House of European History in Brussels and the Museum of the Second World War in Gdańsk. The exhibition is at the Museum of the Second World War and is open to the public until November 2, 2025.