Verrazzano Explores North America
In 1524, the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano, sailing under the French flag, explored the Atlantic coast of North America over a stretch of roughly 1,000 miles or more. His voyage gave Europeans one of the first detailed descriptions of the continent's eastern seaboard between about the Carolinas and Newfoundland. It also helped establish France's later claim to a place in the Americas, and it left names and images that shaped European maps for decades.
The background was a race for access to Asia. Columbus's voyages had shown that land lay across the Atlantic, but many Europeans still hoped for a sea passage through or around it to the spice markets of the East. Spain and Portugal had divided much of the non-European world between them under the Treaty of Tordesillas, and France's king, Francis I, wanted a share of the opportunity. Wealthy Lyon and Florentine merchants and bankers backed an expedition to find a northern route to Cathay. Verrazzano, an experienced seafarer from a Tuscan family, was chosen to lead it.
He set out with a small fleet, though storms and other troubles reduced it to a single ship, the La Dauphine. After crossing the Atlantic, he reached the North American coast in early 1524, most likely near present-day North Carolina. From there he sailed north, and his account describes sandy shores, forests, and encounters with Native peoples, some of them wary and some welcoming. He entered what is generally identified as New York Bay, and he also visited an inlet usually linked to Narragansett Bay. He then continued along the coast of what is now New England and the Canadian Maritimes before turning home.
Verrazzano's report to Francis I, written after his return, is the main source for the voyage. It has long been debated. Some historians have questioned details and the so-called Cellere Codex version, and a few doubted that parts of the journey happened as described. Most scholars accept that the voyage took place, though specific landfalls are interpreted from vague descriptions. His most influential error was the idea of a vast western sea beyond a narrow strip of land, probably inspired by a view across the Outer Banks. Maps showed this "Sea of Verrazzano" for years.
The voyage did not lead to French settlement right away, and Verrazzano did not find a passage to Asia. Still, it confirmed that North America was a continuous barrier and sparked further French interest, leading to Jacques Cartier's voyages in the 1530s. Verrazzano himself died on a later expedition to the Caribbean, reportedly killed by Indigenous people. His name survives in New York's Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge.