Giovanni Da Verrazzano Bridged Europe-America - Investors.com
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French King Francis I obsessed on one thing: finding a westward sea route to China before Spanish, Portuguese or British merchants did.
Yet that longed-for Northwest Passage through the North American continent just didn't exist.
Enter Giovanni da Verrazzano.
The Italian explorer — working for the king and merchant backers — found something better than a transit route in 1524.
He found dense forests and native people willing to trade.
He drew the first known maps of the East Coast, from the Carolinas up to Canada. And he was the first European to sail into what's now New York Harbor and Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay.
His maps and descriptions, though flawed, inspired future exploration and helped Europeans establish the trading centers and towns that would become the great cities of North America.
"That's why Verrazzano's voyage, which can be reckoned a failure because he didn't find a passage to China, is reckoned a success," Kathleen Hulser, curator at the New York Historical Society, told IBD. "He succeeded in circulating information which pried open the door to a whole lot of other commercial possibilities."
Verrazzano's Keys
- First European to map America's East Coast. Also the first to sail into and map New York Harbor and Narragansett Bay, in search of the mythical Northwest Passage.
- Though he didn't find a route through the Americas to Asia, he inspired future explorers and traders to come to North America. "He succeeded in circulating information which pried open the door to a whole lot of other commercial possibilities," said historian Kathleen Hulser.
The Start
Historians don't have a grip on Verrazzano (1485—1528).
Samuel Morison wrote in his 1971 book, "The European Discovery of America," that the explorer was born near Florance, Italy, in 1485 and moved to France.
Other accounts, including a biography on the website of the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., say he was born to a wealthy Italian family in Lyon, France, calling Verrazzano "a Frenchman at heart."
Some biographies say he was a pirate by trade. Others say he was a successful navigator and seafarer.
Regardless, in 1523 the French king enlisted Verrazzano to help find a direct sea route to the riches of India and China.
The previous year, surviving members of Ferdinand Magellan's crew returned to Spain after circumnavigating the globe to the west. The voyage, skirting South America through what became known as the Straight of Magellan, was harrowing. But it brought new wealth and prestige to the Spanish.
The French king was jealous.
So he partnered with the merchants he needed to finance the trip — an early public-private partnership, Hulser says — and sent Verrazzano. The explorer left Brittany 1523 with four ships, but lost two in a storm and turned back.
After refitting and repairs, he set out again, this time with two ships armed for battle in case Spanish vessels challenged them.
