Giovanni da Verrazano

The Italian navigator and explorer Giovanni da Verrazano (ca. 1485-ca. 1528) made a voyage to North America in 1524-1525, in the service of France, during which he explored and charted the Atlantic coast of North America.

Following the Spanish discovery of rich Indian civilizations in Mexico and Peru, other European powers also sought footholds in the New World. The English and the French actively pursued an empire in the northern half of the Western Hemisphere. Francis I, King of France, was anxious to put out an exploratory expedition before his European competitors had claimed all of the New World. In January 1525 he authorized an expedition of four ships. Giovanni da Verrazano, a Florentine navigator, was chosen as pilot of one of these ships, the Dauphine. The expedition also had a second mission. Shortly after leaving France, three of the ships broke away and engaged in pirating expeditions against Spanish treasure ships. Only the Dauphine, under Verrazano's command, actually undertook a mapping and exploring expedition along the Atlantic coast of North America.

Although Verrazano's most significant discoveries were along the middle Atlantic coastal region, his ship traveled as far north as Cape Cod and Nova Scotia. The Dauphine spent most of the winter months of 1525 off the shores of North America. It was during this time that Verrazano sighted Chesapeake Bay. He mistook the bay to be an opening through the North American continent to China. He recorded in his diary: "From the ship was seen the ocean of the east." He made no effort to cross that sea, which became known as Verrazano sea. His mistake influenced cartographers for many years. They subsequently drew maps of the New World in the shape of an hourglass, with the Verrazano Sea forming the narrow waist.

After his discovery of this bay, Verrazano continued his coastal explorations farther north. By spring he had charted Delaware Bay and had entered New York Bay. He sailed into the Hudson River, taking notes about the appearance of the natives observed along the way.

Verrazano continued his journey up the coast into Narragansett Bay and past Cape Cod. He proceeded as far north as Nova Scotia. His original mission, that of establishing some precedent for French claims in North America, was completed. He then headed back to France, after an absence of nearly seven months.

The rest of Verrazano's career is somewhat obscure. There is evidence that he made a second and possibly even a third trip back to America. His final voyage occurred in 1528, the year when he left France to search for a Central American passage to the Orient. Verrazano never returned from that journey; he was likely the victim of either a storm or unfriendly natives.

Further Reading

For information on Verrazano's part in the exploration of North America see John Bartlet Brebner, The Explorers of North America, 1492-1806 (1933); Harold Lamb, New Found World: How North America Was Discovered and Explored (1955); and J. H. Parry, The Age of Reconnaissance (1963). □

Verrazzano, Giovanni da (1485–1528), Italian navigator, born at the Castello Verrazzano in the Chianti district near Florence, a son of a noble family. At the age of 21 or 22 he moved to Dieppe to take up a maritime career, and from then on sailed in the service of France. During the next ten or twelve years he made a number of trading voyages to the Levant and appears to have met, and discussed navigation with, Ferdinand Magellan before the latter set off on his circumnavigation.

By 1523 Verrazzano had interested François I in a project of exploration and discovery in the New World with the idea of discovering for France a new passage into the Pacific Ocean and thus access to the wealth of the Far East. The king lent him a ship, the 100-ton Dauphine, and with financial backing from Florentine bankers, together with a second, smaller, ship, the Normande, he sailed from Dieppe to Madeira where the Normande left him to return to France. The Dauphine crossed the Atlantic alone and reached the American coast in the vicinity of the present Cape Fear in North Carolina and sailed north along the Carolina Outer Banks, round Cape Hatteras and up to the present Kitty Hawk, mistaking the great extent of the Pamlico Sound, inside the Outer Banks, for the Pacific Ocean, and naming it the Sea of Verrazzano. He continued north and, encouraged by friendly Indians, entered New York Bay, probably anchoring in the narrows between Staten Island and the Long Island shore, the first European known to visit these waters. He continued northwards, visiting Narragansett Bay, the site of the present Newport on Rhode Island, rounding Cape Cod, and finally reached the Newfoundland coast. From there he returned to Dieppe, reaching there in July 1524.

Verrazzano was one of the first navigators to realize that America was a new continent, and not part of Asia, but he had difficulty in persuading either the king or the bankers to finance another voyage since he had brought back nothing of value from the new lands he had visited. But in 1527 he led a new expedition across the Atlantic, still in search of the mythical northern strait to the Pacific. Mutinous crews cut short his exploration, and all he achieved was a quick visit to Brazil, returning to France with a profitable cargo of wood from which valuable dyes could be extracted.

With the profits from the wood, and the hope of more, Verrazzano set off from Dieppe on his third voyage in the spring of 1528. He had the intention of searching for the strait into the Pacific south of his previous exploration, and reached America at the Florida coast hoping to find signs of a strait around the Isthmus of Darien. Instead, after reaching the Bahamas, he sailed down the Lower Antilles, anchoring probably off the coast of Guadeloupe. Here he decided to go ashore, not knowing that instead of the friendly natives they had encountered during their first voyage, the Antilles were inhabited by man-eating Caribs. As soon as Verrazzano waded ashore, he was cut up and eaten on the spot.

Giovanni da Verrazano , c.1480–1527?, Italian navigator and explorer, in the service of France, possibly the first European to enter New York Bay. Sailing west to reach Asia, Verrazano explored (1524) the North American coast probably from North Carolina to Maine. In 1526, or later, sailing from France, he explored the West Indies, where he was killed by the natives. Based on his discoveries, his brother Gerolamo's maps (1529) showed a new concept of North America. The name is sometimes spelled Verrazzano.

Bibliography: See L. C. Wroth, The Voyages of Giovanni da Verrazzano (1970).

Verrazzano, Giovanni da (c.1485–c.1528) Italian (Florentine) navigator in the service of France. He led three expeditions in search of a westward passage into the Pacific and thus to the East. In 1524 he explored the North American coast from North Carolina to New York Bay and continued north to Newfoundland before returning to Dieppe. In 1527 he took a second expedition across the Atlantic and reached Brazil. He set out once more in 1528 but was met in the Antilles by cannibal CARIBS who killed and ate him.