WAS AMERICA INHABITED BY GIANTS?
MILAN UNIVERSITY REVEALS SURPRISING MEDIEVAL DOCUMENT
Researchers at the State University of Milan have uncovered a forgotten document that would seem to prove that a voyage of discovery to the New World was undertaken 150 years before the epic voyage of Christopher Columbus. The little known Latin document, entitled “Cronica universalis”, written by Dominican friar Galvano Fiamma, contains a reference to a land called Marckalada, which researchers believe conforms to the name Markland in the Norse chronicles.
The text, translated by PD student Giulia Greco, as part of a special project coordinated by Paolo Chiesa, chair professor of Medieval Latin Literature says: “the sailors who pass the seas of Denmark and Norway recount that beyond Norway, north of Iceland, and then an island called Greenland..and then further towards the west is the land called Marckalada where the inhabitants are giants. There are buildings constructed of stones so big that no man, but only giants, would be able to put them in place There are many green trees and many animals and birds live there. But no seaman has managed to get certain news about this land and its characteristics”.
The document would appear to confirm Scandinavian legends concerning landings on the American continent by Viking heroes centuries before the clamorous Columbus discovery. Galvani is believed to have obtained his information from Genoese seamen who traded steadily with the northern countries.
The State University of Milan is one of the biggest universities in Europe with some 60,000 students and 2000 permanent teaching and research staff.
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