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Irresistible North: From Venice To Greenland On The Trail Of The Zen Brothers (2011)

by Andrea Di Robilant(Favorite Author)

3.52 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

030726985X (ISBN13: 9780307269850)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Knopf

review 1: polyglot historian di robilant tells a funny tale of venice merchant sailors trying their hand at trading in low countries, getting blown off course, and ending up north of scotland, and wrote letters home to tell their family about it. this in about 1398. then the grandson? finally writes up these remenants of the tale, and map, and was a wild best seller, see, one zen brother supposedly went all the way to, perhaps, nova scotia, or at least west side of greenland and down to labrador/newfoundland, via orkneys, faroes, iceland, greenland. quite a feat in 1400. AND they went with a scot, sinclair. a bit of a twisted tale but author does great job educating reader on map making, venice wars and trading in eastern med, church matters: luthren and catholic and jew and moslem... more, the trade commodities, what rich people did with their money in venice, the 'council of ten', vikings and scandinavian hegemony, modern day faroes and orkneys and iceland and greenland, georgraphers, romans and greeks and on.a delightful wide-ranging history of discovery and merchants and church from 1300's to 1400;s, pre-columbian. has maps, photos, house plans, and great bibliography of items in latin , greek, spanish, french, italian, german, and english sources.fun, but also perhaps controversial in that no one is absolutely sure if any of this really "happened".
review 2: An entertaining read about a bit of history I knew nothing of. Was interested to learn that the history to exploration of the North Atlantic and North America by people of Scandinavia and elsewhere (the Zens were from Venice) was suppressed during Elizabeth I's reign so that English could establish claim there, preventing Spanish expansion. Di Roblilant follows the trail the Zens travelled, including the influence of their map well into the 18C. less

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