The Zeno brothers, Nicolò (c. 1326 – c. 1402) and Antonio (died c. 1403), were Italian noblemen from the Republic of Venice who lived during the 14th century. They became well known in 1558, when their descendant, Nicolò Zeno the Younger, published a map and a series of letters purporting to describe an exploration made by the brothers of the north Atlantic and Arctic waters during the 1390s. The younger Nicolò claimed the documents were discovered in a storeroom of his family home. Widely accepted at the time of publication, the map was incorporated into the works of major cartographers, including Gerardus Mercator. Modern historians and geographers have disputed the veracity of the map and the described voyages, with some accusing the younger Zeno of forgery. Nicolò and Antonio were brothers of the Venetian naval hero Carlo Zeno. The Zeno family was an established part of the aristocracy of Venice and had the franchise for transportation between Venice and the Holy Land during the Crusades. According to the younger Zeno, the map and letters date from about the year 1400 and describe a long voyage made by the Zeno brothers during the 1390s by the direction of a prince named Zichmni. Supporters of a legend involving the contemporaneous Scottish nobleman Henry Sinclair, Earl of Orkney suggest that Zichmni is a mistranscription of d’Orkney. The voyage supposedly traversed the North Atlantic and, according to some interpretations, reached North America nearly a century before the voyages of Christopher Columbus.
Alleged voyage Nicolò and Antonio are notable for a number of letters and a map (the so-called "Zeno map") published in the year 1558 by one of their descendants, also named Nicolò Zeno. The letters, written allegedly by the brothers about 1400, describe a voyage of exploration that they say they made throughout the North Atlantic (and, by some interpretations, to North America) by command of a prince named Zichmni (whom some have identified as Henry Sinclair). Some commentators have suggested that a descendant, William Sinclair (c. 1404 – c. 1484), the builder of Rosslyn Chapel, had knowledge of Henry Sinclair's involvement with the Zeno brothers and had decorated the interior of the chapel with carvings of plants discovered during the voyage. This claim of "proof" that the voyage occurred has been discredited. The letters and accompanying map are controversial and are regarded by at least one historian as a hoax, perpetrated 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 apart as a boy. In 1989, Italian scholar Giorgio Padoan published a study influenced by Pohl's belief that Sinclair went West in 1398, suggesting that there is some authenticity in their travels and stated correctly that Nicolò is not to be found in any document between the years 1396–1400 (so he could have been at least in Iceland).
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