It is not certain if John Scolvus really existed and whether he reached America aboard these ships. All sources mentioning him were written long afterwards. Some evidence may suggest that Scolvus did exist and sailed to some location in the North Atlantic. The earliest mention of him is on a 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 inscription, "Quij, the people to whom Joes Scoluss, a Dane, penetrated about the year 1476." According to the Encyclopedia of Newfoundland and Labrador "Based on study of toponymy and cartography, most scholars have concluded that Scolvus visited Greenland and not Labrador." (Friseus’ knowledge of Labrador may have come from Portuguese sources). DCB /. acb Spanish author
Francisco López de Gómara wrote in his
Historia de las Indias (1553) about
la Tierra de Labrador; "Hither also came men from Norway with the pilot [navigator] Joan Scoluo, and Englishmen with Sebastian [should be John] Gaboto." Gómara had supposedly met
Olaus Magnus in
Bologna and
Venice, perhaps in 1548. This suggests that the source of the statement about "Joan Scoluo" may have been him. Another possible reference to John Scolvus visiting Labrador is a document prepared in about 1575 for the first voyage of
Martin Frobisher. After stating that Sebastian (should be
John) "Cabotte" was sent out by King
Henry VII in 1496 (should be 1497) to find the passage from the
Atlantic Ocean to the
Pacific, and that "one
Caspar Cortesreales, a pilot of Portingale", had visited these islands on the north coast of North America in 1500, the document continues: "But to find oute the passage oute of the North Sea into the Southe we must sayle to the 60 degree, that is, from 66 unto 68. And this passage is called the Narowe Sea or Streicte of the three Brethren [i.e., the three brothers Corte-Real]; in which passage, at no tyme in the yere, is ise wonte to be found. The cause is the swifte ronnyng downe of sea into sea. In the north side of this passage, John Scolus, a pilot of Denmerke, was in anno 1476." While further containing complete impossibilities, the text also contain statements that have a sure historical foundation, like the voyage of Gaspar Corte-Real. On an English map from 1582 by
Michael Lok, there is a country to the north-west of Greenland, on which is written: "Jac. Scolvus
Croetland". The corresponding country on Mercator's map of 1569 is "Croclant, island whose inhabitants are Swedes by descent". In 1597, the
Brabanter Cornelius Wytfliet wrote in his
Continens Indica that the northern parts of America were first discovered by "
Frislandish" fishermen, and later were further explored about 1390 by the
Zeno brothers. He further writes; "but the honour of its second discovery fell to the Pole Johannes Scoluus (
Johannes Scoluus Polonus), who in the year 1476 — eighty-six years after its first discovery — sailed beyond Norway, Greenland, Frisland, penetrated the Northern Strait, under the very Arctic Circle, and arrived at the country of Labrador and
Estotiland".
Fridtjof Nansen suggested that
Polonus was a misreading of
piloto from the earlier account by Gomara which Wytfliet's writings is thought to have relied on. On the
L'Ecuy globe, of the sixteenth century, it is written in Latin that between 70° and 80° N. lat. and in long. "
These are the people to whom the Dane Johannes Scowus penetrated in the year 1476." Hansen suggested that "The description of Scolvus as a Dane may indicate the same source as the English mention of him in 1576." Generally, the later sources about Scolvus are less reliable, since the writers probably read the earlier accounts and more or less copied from them. ==Speculations==