[Sidenote:  The 5 letter.] Concerning those things that you desire to know of me, as of the men and their maners and customes, of the beasts, and of the countries adioyning, I haue made therof a particuler booke, which by Gods help I will bring with me:  wherein I haue decribed the countrey, the monstrous fishes, the customes and lawes of Frisland, Island, Estland, the kingdome of Norway, Estotiland, Drogio, and in the end the life of M. Nicolo, the knight our brother, with the discouery which he made, and the state of Groneland.  I haue also written the life and acts of Zichmni, a prince as worthy of immortall memory, as euer liued, for his great valiancie and singular humanitie, wherein I haue described the discouery of Engroneland on both sides, and the citie that he builded.  Therefore I will speake no further hereof in this letter, hoping to be with you very shortly, and to satisfie you in sundry other things by word of mouth.

All these letters were written by M. Antonio to Messer Carlo his brother:  and it grieueth me, that the booke and diuers other writings concerning these purposes, are miserably lost:  for being but a child when they came to my hands, and not knowing what they were, (as the maner of children is) I tore them, and rent them in pieces, which now I cannot cal to remembrance but to my exceeding great griefe.  Notwithstanding, that the memory of so many good things should not bee lost:  whatsoeuer I could get of this matter, I haue disposed and put in order in the former discourse, to the ende that this age might be partly satisfied, to the which we are more beholding for the great discoueries made in those partes, then to any other of the time past, being most studious of the newe relations and discoueries of strange countries, made by the great mindes, and industrie of our ancestours.

For the more credite and confirmation of the former Historie of Messer Nicolas and Messer Antonio Zeni (which for some fewe respects may perhaps bee called in question) I haue heere annexed the iudgement of that famous Cosmographer Abraham Ortelius, or rather the yealding and submitting of his iudgement thereunto:  who in his Theatrum Orbis, fol. 6. next before the map of Mar del Zur, boroweth proofe and authoritie out of this relation, to shew that the Northeast parte of America called Estotiland, and in the original alwayes affirmed to bee an Islande, was about the yeere 1390 discouered by the aforesayd Venetian Gentleman Messer Antonio Zeno, aboue 100 yeeres before euer Christopher Columbus set saile for those Westerne Regions; and that the Northren Seas were euen then sayled by our Europaean Pilots through the helpe of the loadstone:  with diuers other particulars concerning the customes, religion and wealth of the Southern Americans, which are most euidently confirmed by all the late and moderne Spanish Histories of Nueua Espanna and Peru.