John Scolvus

John Scolvus (also known as "Ioannis Scolvenius", "Iohannes Scolvus Polonus", _de. Johannes Scolnus, _pl. Jan z Kolna) was a semi-legendary sailor c. 1470–80.

It has been claimed that he was among the first Europeans to reach the shores of the Americas prior to Columbus in 1476 as steersman of Didrik Pining, although this view is not supported by genuine evidence. ["So, presumably, had Johannes Scolvus. .... We unfortunately know very little about Pothurst, and even less about Scolvus.", Thomas L. Hughes, " [http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/033/79.pdf The German Discovery of America: A Review of the Controversy over Didrik Pining’s Voyage of Exploration in 1473 in the North Atlantic] ", in: "German Historical Institute Bulletin", No. 33 (Fall 2003)]

The alleged Pining expedition

It is claimed that in 1476, a fleet of several Danish ships sponsored by Christian I of Denmark set sail from Norway westwards to Greenland. The fleet is alleged to have been commanded by two German sailors and pirate hunters Dietrich Pining and Hans Pothorst and the Portuguese João Vaz Corte-Real. It is further claimed that from the Western coast of Greenland they may have reached the American continent.

Questions on existence

It is not certain whether John really existed and whether he reached America aboard these ships. Some evidence could suggest that Scolvus existed and sailed to some location in the North Atlantic, primarily 1536 globe of cartographer Gemma Frisius which depicts an area within the Arctic Circle, north of a strait dividing "Terra Corterealis" and "Baccalearum Regio" from the westward projection of Greenland. Within this area is the incription, "Quij, the people to whom John Scolvus, a Dane, penetrated about the year 1476.""Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador vol. 5, p. 107-108", ISBN 0-9693422-1-7.] Another reference to the possibility of John Scolnus visiting Labrador is a document prepared in about 1575 for the first voyage of Martin Frobisher which bears a similar inscription: "In the north side of this passage John Scolnus, a pilot of Denmark, was in anno 1476."

Other evidence

The first to mention Johannes Scolnus as the discoverer of Labrador ("Terra Laboratoris") and the area of present-day Boston was Francisco López de Gómara in his "Historia general de las Indias y conquista de Mexico" (1552). Other sources to mention him are:
* François de Belleforest 1570
* Cornelius Wytfliet, "Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum" 1597 and 1599
* Claude Barthélemy Morisot 1643
* George Horn 1671
* Coronelli 1691
* Charlevoix 1744

Man of many names

The Polish historian and cartographer Joachim Lelewel (1786 - 1861) was the first to gather all the available mentions of Johannes Scolnus. He claimed that "Jan z Kolna" ( _en. John of Kolno) was Polish and that the sailor was the navigator of the Danish fleet. There are also mentions of a Joannis de Colno who studied at the Cracow Academy in 1455, and of the Colno or Cholno family of merchants and sailors living in Danzig (Gdańsk).

Criticisms

Boleslaw Olszewicz, one of the 20th century historians to criticize the work of Lelewel, argues that there is not enough evidence to prove that this sailor was actually Polish. Most of the works to mention Johannes Scolnus were published more than a century after his voyage and no contemporary evidence has been preserved.

peculations

Also, in the late 19th century various scholars identified John as a sailor of Norwegian ("Johann Scolv"), Portuguese ("João Scolvo") or German descent.

Some writers have even speculated that "Johannes Scolvus" was none other than the young Christopher Columbus himself.

ee also

* Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact

References

External links

* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=262 Dictionary of Canadian Biography]
* [http://portal.unesco.org/ci/photos/showphoto.php/photo/4834 H. P. Resen's map]