Giovanni da Verrazano
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Giovanni da Verrazzano (c. 1485 – c.1528). |
Giovanni da Verrazzano or
Verrazano (c. 1485 – c.1528) was an
Italian explorer of
North America. Verrazzano sailed for
France and is renowned as the
European discoverer of many features of the
Atlantic coast of the
United States and
Canada, including
New York Harbor, where the
Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is named in his honor.
Giovanni da Verrazzano was born at Val di Greve, near the city of
Florence, in
Tuscany,
Italy, around 1485 and died in
1528 in the
Lesser Antilles.
Although Verrazzano left a detailed account of his journey to
North America, many of the other details about his life remain unknown. He was born approximately 30 miles (48 km) south of
Florence at Castello Verrazzano, his family's castle. His date of birth is uncertain, but it was around
1485. Around 1506 or 1507, he moved to
Dieppe, to pursue a maritime career. He made several voyages to the Eastern
Mediterranean, and also visited
Newfoundland.
In
1524 or
1525, he was sent out by King
Francis I of France to explore the region between
Florida and
Newfoundland for a route to the
Pacific. He made landfall near
Cape Fear on or around
March 1, as recorded in his personal journals. He initially sailed south along the coast of present-day
South Carolina, then turned north again. Sailing along the
Outer Banks of present-day
North Carolina, he recorded what he observed to be a large inland sea, which he thought was the beginning of the
Pacific Ocean, although it is actually the
estuary of the
Pamlico Sound. This mistake led mapmakers, starting with
Visconte Maggiolo in
1527 and Giovanni's brother
Girolamo da Verrazzano in
1529, to draw North America as being almost split in two, the two parts connected by a thin
land bridge on the East Coast. It would take a century for this error to be corrected.
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Verrazzano's voyage of 1524. |
He made landfall several times and interacted with the
Native Americans of the coast. Although he passed the mouth of
Chesapeake Bay, he did not enter it or record its existence. He likewise did not record the existence of the
Delaware River further north. According to his journals, he sailed along the coast of present-day
New Jersey and entered
Lower New York Bay. He anchored in the
Narrows, the strait between
Staten Island and
Long Island, where he received a
canoe party of
Lenape. A party of his sailors may have taken on fresh water at a spring called "the watering place" on Staten Island but Verrazano's descriptions of the geography of the area are a bit ambiguous. It is fairly firmly held by historians that his ship anchored at the approximate location where the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge touches down in Brooklyn today. He also observed what he believed to be a large freshwater lake to the north (apparently
Upper New York Bay, also called New York Harbor). He apparently did not penetrate deeply enough into New York Harbor to observe the existence of the
Hudson River.
From New York Harbor, he continued along the south coast of Long Island, then crossed
Block Island Sound and entered
Naragansett Bay, where he probably met the
Narragansett people. He followed the coast further east and north to
Maine, skirted the southeast coast of
Nova Scotia, then returned to France by way of
Newfoundland.
Later, Verrazzano made two more voyages to the Americas. On the first, he cut
logwood in
Brazil. The cause of Verrazzano's death is not known for certain. According to some sources, he was killed in
1528 on his third voyage to the New World by the natives of
Lesser Antilles. According to other sources, he was captured by the
Spanish and hanged as a
pirate in
Cadiz.
Although Verrazzano was the first recorded European to visit the East Coast of the present-day United States, his reputation did not endure and proliferate as much as other explorers of that era. This was particularly true in
New York City, where the 1609 voyage of
Henry Hudson came to be regarded as the
de facto start of the European exploration of New York. It was only with great effort in the 1950s and 1960s that Verrazzano's name and reputation as the European discoverer of the harbour was re-established, during an effort to have the newly built Narrows bridge named after him.
See Naming controversy of the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. A Staten Island ferryboat that served New York from the 1950s to the 1990s was also named for him (oddly, the ferry was named the "Verrazzano," while the bridge, another Staten Island landmark, was named "Verrazano," indicating the ongoing confusion over the spelling of his name). There are numerous other commemorations on Staten Island itself to the explorer reflecting not only his connection to Staten Island but also the large number of descendents of Italian immigrants who live there.
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Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online*
Greve main piazza - statue of Giovanni da Verrazzano
