40 Fun Facts About Giovanni Da Verrazzano

By the account most historians accept, how did the explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano die on a Caribbean island in 1528?

Eaten by cannibals is the version scholars favour: he rowed ashore, probably on Guadeloupe, while his ships sat anchored too far out to help.

Until 2018, New York's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge officially misspelled the explorer's surname by leaving out what?

A second Z went missing in a 1959 construction contract, and the bridge stayed Verrazano for nearly six decades until a student's campaign got it fixed.

Verrazzano saw the broad waters of Pamlico Sound behind North Carolina's Outer Banks and mistook them for which ocean?

The Pacific, he believed, lay just beyond a thin strip of sand, so maps showed a Sea of Verrazzano cutting into North America for about a century.

In 1524 Verrazzano likened an island off New England to which Greek island?

Rhodes was his comparison, and later colonists assumed he meant Aquidneck Island. That is one theory for how Rhode Island got its name; a rival traces it to a Dutch phrase for a red island.

Verrazzano's letter complains that Native traders on the coast of Maine mocked his departing crew in which rude way?

Baring their bottoms and laughing was the farewell he recorded. These traders around Casco Bay were already used to bargaining with Europeans.

Verrazzano entered New York Harbor in 1524, 85 years before which English explorer whose name the river there now bears?

Henry Hudson arrived in 1609 sailing for the Dutch, and New Yorkers long treated his visit as the start of their history, leaving Verrazzano almost forgotten.

The towers of New York's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge are so tall and far apart that its designers had to allow for what?

Earth's curvature leaves the 693-foot towers about one and five-eighths inches farther apart at their tops than at their bases.

A 1963 petition with thousands of signatures sought to rename the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge after which American?

John F. Kennedy had just been assassinated. His brother Robert promised the Verrazzano name would stay, and Idlewild Airport was renamed for the president instead.

Which French king, the patron who brought Leonardo da Vinci to his court, sent Verrazzano to North America in 1524?

Francis I wanted a share of the New World's riches and a sea route to China, and Verrazzano named the land he found Francesca in the king's honour.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge, named for the explorer who anchored nearby in 1524, joins Staten Island to which borough?

Brooklyn and Staten Island face each other across the Narrows, the strait where Verrazzano anchored, and the bridge is still its only fixed crossing.

Giovanni da Verrazzano came from which Italian city-state, also the home of the Medici and of Amerigo Vespucci?

Florence was his family's city, and its merchants living in France later put up much of the money for his 1524 voyage.

Which annual sporting event begins by sending its competitors across both decks of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge?

New York City Marathon runners set off from Staten Island across the bridge, which normally carries only vehicles and is closed to traffic for the race.

On opening in 1964, the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge took the record for longest suspension span from which landmark?

The Golden Gate had held the record since 1937, and the new span named for Verrazzano beat it by just 60 feet.

Verrazzano crossed the Atlantic in 1524 about 150 miles north of the course of which earlier Italian navigator?

Columbus had crossed three decades earlier. Verrazzano's more northerly track brought him ashore in today's Carolinas rather than the Caribbean.

Verrazzano ended his 1524 survey of the American coast at which large island, already familiar to European fishermen?

Newfoundland was known ground, so with supplies running low he turned for home there, having charted the coast all the way up from the Carolinas.

Verrazzano turned north instead of sailing on toward Florida, wary of meeting ships of which rival European power?

Spain claimed Florida and patrolled its waters, and Verrazzano had spent time harassing that kingdom's shipping before he set out across the ocean.

Although Verrazzano was hunting for a passage west, he sailed past which bay, the largest estuary in the United States?

Chesapeake Bay has a mouth about twelve miles wide, yet his letter never mentions it. He probably passed too far offshore to see the opening.

Castello di Verrazzano, the explorer's ancestral family home, still makes wine in the heart of which Italian region?

Chianti vines at Verrazzano are mentioned in a manuscript from 1150, more than three centuries before the explorer was born.

Which ship, the only one of Verrazzano's four vessels to cross the Atlantic in 1524, carried him along America's coast?

La Dauphine was a royal ship of about 100 tons with a crew of some fifty. A storm claimed two of the other vessels, and La Normande turned back before the crossing.

Which Native American people paddled out in about thirty canoes to meet Verrazzano's ship in New York Bay in 1524?

Lenape people came toward the ship with cries of wonder, dressed in feathers of many colours, in their first recorded meeting with Europeans.

A bronze statue of Verrazzano was unveiled in 1909 in which green space at the southern tip of Manhattan?

The Battery received the statue, by the sculptor Ettore Ximenes, after Italian Americans campaigned to remind New Yorkers who had reached their harbour first.

The 1529 world map by Verrazzano's brother Girolamo, a key record of the voyage, is now kept in which collection?

The Vatican holds the chart, the earliest map to carry the name New France, written on it as Nova Gallia.

Verrazzano's lone ship began its 1524 Atlantic crossing from which island group off the coast of northwest Africa?

Madeira was his last landfall. He slipped away from a deserted islet there with a crew of fifty and enough provisions for eight months.

On a 1527 voyage to South America, Verrazzano brought home a cargo of which timber, prized in Europe for its red dye?

Brazilwood filled the holds of the ships that made it home, a consolation prize for failing once again to find a passage to Asia.

Verrazzano was once confused with Jean Fleury, a corsair who seized Aztec treasure sent home by which conquistador?

Hernán Cortés lost a fortune in Aztec gold when Fleury seized his treasure ships in the early 1520s. Historians have since shown that the pirate and the explorer were different men.

What did the discovery of the Cèllere Codex, a manuscript annotated by Verrazzano himself, settle about his voyage?

Whether it happened at all was in real doubt: some 19th-century scholars called the voyage a fabrication until the manuscript surfaced in a private library in Italy.

Verrazzano named part of the Atlantic coast Arcadia, a likely source of the name Acadia, for the beauty of its what?

Trees inspired the name, borrowed from an idyllic region of Greece. Later mapmakers shifted it north until it settled on Canada's Atlantic provinces.

Verrazzano spent about two weeks at anchor in which New England bay, where another bridge bearing his name now stands?

Narragansett Bay struck him as a fine harbour that would be easy to fortify; his anchorage there, which he called Refugio, is identified with modern Newport.

The Italian navy named which type of warship after Giovanni da Verrazzano, a vessel sunk by a British submarine in 1942?

A destroyer of the Navigatori class carried his name. All twelve ships of the class honoured Italian explorers, and only one of them survived the war.

Verrazzano's only known signature, on a 1526 deed kept in Rouen, gives his name in which language?

Latin was his choice: he signed as Janus Verrazanus, a classical flourish typical of an educated Renaissance man.

The Elizabethan writer Richard Hakluyt recorded that Verrazzano gave a map of his discoveries to which English king?

Henry VIII received the map, by Hakluyt's account, which has led some historians to wonder whether Verrazzano visited England in search of a new patron.

Verrazzano's first American landfall in 1524 is usually placed near which headland on the Carolina coast?

Cape Fear is the likely spot. He probed south looking for a harbour, found none, then turned and worked his way up the coast.

After entering New York's harbour in 1524, Verrazzano described the broad sheltered water he found there as what?

A lake is how he described Upper New York Bay. A storm drove his ship back out to sea after a single day, before he could explore any further.

Verrazzano named the future site of New York after which French town, where his royal patron had once been count?

Angoulême gave New York its first European name, a full century before Dutch settlers founded New Amsterdam on the same harbour.

Which French Channel port, home of the shipowner Jean Ango, did Verrazzano sail back into in July 1524?

Dieppe was where he had settled as a young navigator, and where he dated his famous report to the king on the day he came home.

Italian merchants in which French city, the hub of its silk trade, funded much of Verrazzano's 1524 voyage?

Lyon was home to a tight community of expatriate merchants from Verrazzano's own homeland, who formed a syndicate to split the cost and the hoped-for profit.

The Cèllere Codex, Verrazzano's annotated account of his 1524 voyage, is now held by which New York institution?

The Morgan Library keeps the twelve-sheet manuscript in Manhattan, a few miles from the harbour it describes, after it lay unnoticed in Italy for almost four centuries.

As a young man, Verrazzano spent several years as a commercial agent in which great city of the Islamic world?

Cairo was his base for several years, and the eastern Mediterranean, which he came to know well, is probably where he learned his seamanship.

Verrazzano's royal patron was taken prisoner at which 1525 battle in Italy, months after the explorer's return?

Pavia capped a disastrous stretch of war for France. By then the ships Verrazzano had readied for a return voyage had already been commandeered.

Which Swiss-born engineer, who also designed the George Washington Bridge, designed the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge?

Othmar Ammann was in his eighties when the bridge opened in 1964. It was the last of six New York bridges he designed, and he died the following year.