What was giovanni da verrazzano crew like

He made several voyages to the Eastern Mediterranean, and probably also visited Newfoundland. Verrazzano had been provided with four ships, but two of them shipwrecked shortly after departure, while a third one was sent home carrying the prizes from privateering on the Spanish coast, so only the flagship, La Dauphine , actually made the crossing of the Atlantic.

The ship measured tons and had a fifty-man crew. Of these, the only one who is known apart from Verrazzano himself was his brother Girolamo da Verrazzano, who was a mapmaker. His world map was one of the two first maps to show Verrazzano's discoveries the other was Vesconte de Maggiolo's map of the western hemisphere. He set out for his crossing from Madeira, on January 17, and touched land on or around March 1, at Cape Fear.

From here he first sailed south, but he returned at some unknown point yet north of Charleston , being afraid to run into the Spanish, and anchored not far from his original landfall. Unlike other explorers of the day, he preferred to anchor well out at sea. He did, however, send a boat, to the shore, and had a pleasant meeting with the natives, whom he describes thus:.

Some of them wear garlands of birds' feathers. The people are of a color russet, and not much unlike the Saracens; their hair black, thick, and not very long, which they tie together in a knot behind, and wear it like a tail. They are well-featured in their limbs, of average stature, and commonly somewhat bigger than we; broad breasted, strong arms, their legs and other parts of their bodies well fashioned, and they are disfigured in nothing, saving that they have somewhat broad visages, and yet not all of them; for we saw many of them well favoured, having black and great eyes, with a cheerful and steady look, not strong of body, yet sharp-witted, nimble and great runners, as far as we could learn by experience.

He believed that the sea that lay behind it, in reality the Pamlico Sound, was the Pacific. Thus North America at this point seemed nothing more than a rather long, extremely narrow isthmus.

This mistake led mapmakers, starting with Maggiolo and Girolamo, to show North America as almost completely divided in two, the two parts just connected by a narrow piece of land on the east coast. It would take more than a century for this 'sea of Verrazzano' to disappear from the maps. Further north he came to a beautiful place which he therefore called Arcadia.

This was probably Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Here he kidnapped a young child, and failed to kidnap a young woman. Sailing further north, he missed the entrances to Chesapeake and Delaware bays, because until New Jersey he kept quite far from the coast.

Verrazzano next discovered New York Harbor, and anchored in the Narrows, later named after him and now spanned by the Verrazzano Narrows bridge.

He describes the bay and its people as follows:. They came towards us very cheerfully, making great shouts of admiration, showing us where we might come to land most safely with our boat. We entered up the said river into the land about half a league, where it made a most pleasant lake [the Upper bay] about 3 leagues in compass; on the which they rowed from the one side to the other, to the number of 30 in their small boats, wherein were many people, which passed from one shore to the other to come and see us.

The arguments for a expedition, mainly liturgical the naming of geographical features for the feast days on which they were discovered are not demonstrable. The cause of the delay is still a matter of conjecture. With Darien as its likely first destination, the fleet at last set its course in the spring of for Florida, the Bahamas, and the Lesser Antilles. On an island in the latter group, probably near Guadeloupe, Verrazzano landed with a party and was taken by Caribs, killed, and eaten within sight of his crew.

William F. Bacchiani, with commentary, in Soc. Hall, in Stokes, IV, 15— Ramusio, Terzo volume delle navigationi et viaggi nel quale si contengono Le Navigationi al Mondo Nuovo. Strozzi, or Florentine, codex late 16th cent. Cogswell in N. Vatican codex presumably 16th c. The Carli letter and Chabot agreement are appended to Murphy [ infra ], with his tr.

Reproductions of the Maggiolo, G. PAC has a Gastaldo Ptolemy. Pierpont Morgan Library has the Bailly globe, and the N. Bollett , LXII , — Brevoort, Verrazano the navigator Albany, Stokes 6v. Murphy, The voyage of Verrazzano New York, Memorie , VII, Rome, , — Buckingham Smith, An inquiry into the authenticity of documents. As a young man he spent time in Cairo and Syria before moving to France between and to pursue a maritime career. As was the case for many colonial powers at the time, France was concerned with finding a westward route to China.

He was forced to take refuge in Brittany following a storm, and set sail again shortly thereafter with one ship, the Dauphine , and a crew of Verrazzano sailed west and landed at Cape Fear, in what is now North Carolina.

From there he sailed south briefly before following the coast north to Cape Breton. Verrazzano occasionally came ashore to explore; during one of these explorations he kidnapped an Indigenous boy to take back to France. By the time he reached Newfoundland he was running low on supplies so returned to France. He arrived back at Dieppe on 8 July In , Verrazzano set sail on what would be his final voyage.

The purpose of the trip was to trade for spices in the West Indies, reaching Florida, the Bahamas and the Lesser Antilles. On one of these islands, likely near Guadalope, Verrazzano went ashore and was killed by Caribs, the Indigenous people there.