G I O V A N N I     D A     V E R R A Z Z A N O 

(1452-1519)

Giovanni da Verrazzano was an Italian explorer of North America, in the service of the French crown. He is renowned as the first European to explore the Atlantic coast of North America between South Carolina and Newfoundland in 1524, including New York Harbor where the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge is named in his honor.

            Although Verrazzano left a descriptive account of his journey to North America, many of the other details about his life remain unknown. He was born approximately 30 miles south of Florence at Castello Verrazzano, his family's castle in the Val di Greve. His date of birth is uncertain, but it was around 1485. In 1507, he moved to Dieppe, to pursue a maritime career. He made several voyages to the eastern Mediterranean, and also visited Newfoundland.

            In 1524 he was sent by King Francis I of France to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean. 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 thought it was a narrow strip of land beyond which was open ocean - it is actually the estuary of the Pamlico Sound and the Albemarle 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 by the "Sea of Verazzano", the two parts connected by a thin land bridge on the east coast. It would take a century for this error to be corrected.

            He made landfall several times and interacted with the Native Americans of the coast. He missed the Chesapeake Bay and 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 -- a monument stands in a tiny park on the corner of Bay Street and Victory Boulevard at the approximate spot -- but Verrazzano'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.