Giovanni da Verrazzano
Giovanni da Verrazzano (often spelled Verrazano) (Val di Greve, 1485-Antilles, 1528) was an Italian navigator and explorer who, in the service of Francis I from France, he explored the Atlantic coast of North America in search of a northeastern passage to India. He is known for being the first European, after the Viking colonization (1000 AD), who explored, in 1524, the Atlantic coast of North America between the Carolinas (south and north) and Newfoundland, including the current port of New York, Narragansett Bay and the Hudson River. In 1527 he left for Brazil on a new expedition, in which he died the following year.
The Verrazano Narrows Bridge—at the opening of New York Harbor—and an Italian Navy warship—a Navigatori-class destroyer—are some of the many appointments honoring him.
Origins
Giovanni da Verrazano was born in his ancestral home in Val di Greve, a small town south of Florence. Although he left a detailed account of his travels to North America, little is known about his life. After 1506, he settled in the Channel port of Dieppe, France, where he began his career as a navigator.
In 1508, probably in the company of Captain Thomas Aubert, he embarked for the American coast on a ship called La Pensée, equipped by the shipowner Jean Ango (1480–1551). He explored, possibly during a fishing trip, the Newfoundland region and the mouth of the St. Lawrence River in present-day Canada, and also made numerous trips to the eastern Mediterranean. In 1523, he was invited by King Francis I of France to explore an area between Florida and Newfoundland in order to find a sea route through the newly discovered Americas to the Pacific Ocean.
La Dauphine
With a three-masted carrack, La Dauphine, piloted by Antoine de Conflans, they approached the area of Cape Fear (“Cape Fear”) around March 1, 1524 and, after a brief stay, they explored the coast even further north, reaching modern North Carolina and the lagoon of Pamlico Sound. In a letter addressed to Francisco I, he wrote that he was convinced that the latter was the beginning of the Pacific Ocean, of what could be an access to China. This report caused one of many errors in the representation of North America on maps of the time (the continent would not be fully mapped until nearly the century XX).
He also came into contact with Native Americans who lived on the coast. During the trip north, he did not notice the inlets of the Chesapeake Bay or the Delaware River. In April 1524 he reached New York Bay, where he encountered some Lenape and observed what he considered a large lake, which was in fact the inlet of the Hudson River. He described the area as "a nice place." It was the first time a European had seen the island of Manhattan.
He then passed Long Island and entered Narragansett Bay, where he received a Wampanoag delegation. The words "Norman villa" are found on the Maggiolo map. Historian Samuel Eliot Morison wrote: "This occurred in Angouleme (New York) rather than in Refugio (Newport). It was probably intended to compliment one of Verrazzano's noble friends. There are two places called Normanville in France, one near Evreux in Normandy which would naturally be the same. To the west of it, conjecturally on the coast of Delaware or New Jersey, is Longa Villa, which Verrazzano no doubt named after François d'Orleans, Duke of Longueville". He stayed there for two weeks, and then moved north, following the coast to modern Maine, southeastern Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland, after which he returned to France on July 8, 1524.
Verrazzano named the region he explored Francesca after the king of France, but his brother labeled the map Nova Gallia.
Verrazzano organized a second voyage with the financial support of Jean Ango and Philippe de Chabot (c. 1492-1543), who left Dieppe with four ships in the spring of 1527. One ship was separated from the others in a storm near the Cape Verde Islands, but Verrazzano managed to reach the Brazilian coast with two ships and procured a cargo of brazilwood before returning to Dieppe in September. The third ship, also with a cargo of brazilwood, returned later.
This partial success, although it did not find the desired passage to the Pacific Ocean, inspired Verrazzano's last voyage which left Dieppe again in the spring of 1528.
Death
In 1528, during his third voyage to North America, after exploring Florida, the Bahamas, and the Lesser Antilles, Verrazzano anchored offshore and rowed ashore, probably on the island of Guadalupe. He was killed by the native Caribs who inhabited it.The fleet of two or three ships was anchored out of firing range and no one could respond in time.
Reputation
Despite his discoveries, his reputation did not last and proliferated as much as that of other explorers of the day. As an example, in accordance with the practices of the time, Verrazzano gave a European name to the new land he had seen, Francesca, in honor of the French king who had entrusted him with the mission. Neither this nor any of the other names he gave to the various features he discovered have survived. He was unfortunate enough to make his voyage at a time of great discovery, within a few years of both the spectacular Conquest of Mexico and Ferdinand Magellan's circumnavigation of the world—which Magellan ironically did not complete, but which nonetheless earned him a everlasting fame. (These two events occurred in the same three-year period, from 1519 to 1521.)
In the 19th and early 20th centuries there was much debate in the United States about the authenticity of the letters he wrote to Francis I describing the geography, flora, fauna, and native population of the east coast of South America. North. Others thought it true, and today it is almost universally accepted as authentic, especially after the discovery of a letter signed by Francis I in which he refers to Verrazzano's letter.
Verrazzano was particularly unknown in New York City, where Henry Hudson's 1609 voyage came to be regarded de facto as the start of European exploration of New York, since He shipped for the Dutch, not the French. Verrazzano's name, and his reputation as the European discoverer of the port, was reestablished with a major effort in the 1950s and 1960s in a move to have the newly built Narrows Bridge named after him. Also a Staten Island ferry that served New York from the 1950s to the 1990s was also named in his honor (interestingly, the ferry was named "Verrazzano", while the bridge was named "Verrazano", indicating the confusion about the spelling of his name). There are numerous Staten Island commemorations of the explorer (even a Little League is named after him), reflecting not only his relationship with Staten Island, but also the large number of Italian descendants who live there. In Narragansett Bay, the Jamestown Verrazano Bridge is also named in his honor, as is Maryland's Verrazano Bridge.
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