A Milanese friar mentions North America in 1345 text, 150 years before Columbus

[wnylib]

12. Another source of information about Markland

was apparently the Catholic Church and Medieval popes, which would explain knowledge in Italy of the Greenland expeditions to Markland.

According to the following Wikipedia article, Leif Erickson became a Christian on a trip to Norway around 1000 CE. He returned to Greenland with 2 priests. This article refers to Greenland as America when it says that the establishment of a church in Greenland was the first church in " the America." In the rest of the article, it distinguishes between Greenland and North America.

In the History section of the article it says that in 1121 CE a bishop was sent to be part of an expedition to rediscover the eastern coastline of North America that Greenlanders had found 100 years earlier.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_in_Greenland