Genoan Sailors Knew of America in 1340

A new research paper from Italy argues, from the writings of a 14th-century Milanese friar, that sailors in Genoa — the home town of Christopher Columbus — knew of a land west of Greenland across the Atlantic. This lends more color to the enduring question of what, exactly, Columbus expected to find when he set out across the ocean:
An account by Genoan sailors of a verdant land beyond Greenland “where giants live” has been found in a history of the world written around 1340 by an Italian friar — 152 years before Columbus set foot in the Americas in 1492. “This astonishing find is the first known report to circulate in the Mediterranean of the American continent, and if Columbus was aware of what these sailors knew it might have helped convince him make his voyage,” said Paolo Chiesa, who led the research at the University of Milan.
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