Editing Vinland Map (section)

== Acquisition by Yale and publication ==
The Vinland map first came to light in 1957 (three years before the discovery of the Norse site at [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] in [[Newfoundland]] in 1960), bound in a slim volume with a short medieval text called the ''Hystoria Tartarorum'' (usually called in English the ''[[Tartar Relation]]''),  and was unsuccessfully offered to the [[British Museum]] by London book dealer Irving Davis on behalf of a Spanish-Italian dealer named Enzo Ferrajoli de Ry.<ref>Ferrajoli de Ry had been convicted of stealing 700 volumes, printed and manuscript, from the [[Cathedral of the Savior of Zaragoza|La Seo de Zaragoza]], a cathedral at Saragossa, Spain {{Cite news|last=Phillips |first=John McCandlish |author-link=McCandlish Phillips |date=10 November 1964|title=Dealer in New Haven Sold Greek MSS. to Yale; C. A. Stonehill Says That He Got Them in London From ‘Established’ Source |newspaper=The New York Times |page=53 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/11/10/archives/dealer-in-new-haven-sold-greek-mss-to-yale-c-a-stonehill-says-that.html }}</ref> Shortly afterwards, Ferrajoli sold the volume, for $3,500, to American dealer [[Laurence C. Witten II]], who offered it to his ''alma mater'', [[Yale University]]. It was initially treated with suspicion, partly because wormholes in the map and the ''Relation'' did not match. In early 1958, however, Witten's friend Thomas Marston, a Yale librarian, acquired from London book dealer Irving Davis a dilapidated medieval copy of books 21–24 of [[Vincent of Beauvais]]'s encyclopedic ''Speculum historiale'' ("Historical Mirror"), written in two columns on a mix of parchment and paper sheets, with initial capitals left blank, which turned out to be the missing link; the wormholes showing that it had formerly had the map at its beginning and the ''Relation'' at its end. All traces of former ownership marks, except for a small part of a bright pink stamp which overlapped the writing on folio 223 of the ''Speculum'', had been removed, perhaps to avoid tax liability for the former owner (although as historian [[Kirsten Seaver]] noted many years later, stamps on random book pages indicate institutional, not private ownership).<ref name="seaver">{{cite book |last= Seaver |first= Kirsten A. |title= Maps, Myths and Men |year= 2004 |publisher= Stanford University Press |isbn= 9780804749633 }}</ref>

Yale was unable to afford the asking price and was concerned because Witten refused to reveal the [[provenance]] of the map, ostensibly because of the former private owner's tax concerns. Yale contacted another alumnus, [[Paul Mellon]], who agreed to buy it (for a price later stated to be about $300,000) and [[Donation|donate]] it to the university if it could be authenticated. Recognizing its potential importance as the earliest map unambiguously showing America, Mellon insisted that its existence be kept secret until a scholarly book had been written about it. Even the three authors of the book were chosen from among the small number of people who had seen the map before Mellon bought it—two [[British Museum]] curators and Marston. Only one of them, [[Raleigh Ashlin Skelton]], keeper of the Museum's map collection, had significant expertise relevant to the problems posed by the map. (His colleague [[George Painter]], the first person to whom Davis had shown the map in 1957, was brought in for the transcription and translation of the ''Relation''.) The secrecy almost completely ruled out consultation with specialists.<ref name="seaver" /> Witten did his best to help during this period, answering the authors' questions and offering suggestions of his own.<ref>[[Sarah Tyacke|Tyacke, Sarah]] [http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars/Sandars1.pdf Sandars Lectures 2007, 1] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110612053707/http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/sandars/Sandars1.pdf |date=2011-06-12 }}, Cambridge University, 2007, page 16</ref> After years of study, the proofs of the book, ''The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation'',<ref name="skelton">
{{cite book |last= Skelton |first= Raleigh A. |display-authors=etal |title= The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation |edition=2nd |year=1995 |publisher= Yale University Press |isbn= 9780300065206 }}</ref> were ready by the end of 1964, and Mellon donated the map to Yale. The book was published, and the map revealed to the world, the day before [[Columbus Day]], 1965.<ref name="Washburn">
{{cite book |editor-last= Washburn |editor-first= Wilcomb E.  |title= Proceedings of the Vinland Map Conference |year= 1971 |publisher= University of Chicago Press }}</ref>