The Sea of Verrazzano

Giovanni da Verrazzano’s 1524 voyage.

There was never any such thing.

In danger of forfeiting to the Spanish and Portuguese opportunities presented by new lands recently discovered across the Atlantic, especially including the possibility of finding a short-cut to Asia by sailing to the west, the British and French had to act quickly. Under the direction of Henry VII of England, John Cabot had explored a northern route across the Atlantic in 1496, again in 1497 and finally (and apparently tragically) in 1498. A northwest passage to Asia was not found, but the English gained a claim to territory in the vicinity of present-day Newfoundland.

In 1523, King Francis I of France invited Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the New World, starting from or near present-day Florida and continuing northward. It had been established by Iberian explorers and conquerors that no passage to the Far East existed south of Florida, but the region to the north remained almost entirely unexplored.

Towards the beginning of March, 1524, aboard a three-masted sailing vessel called La Dauphine, he neared the vicinity of Cape Fear, a prominent headland jutting into the Atlantic Ocean on the coast of North Carolina. After a brief exploration southward he turned about, possibly in order to avoid Spanish vessels. He then coasted north, soon reaching North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound. Somewhere in the vicinity of Cape Hatteras, Giovanni da Verrazzano came to suspect that he had found a passageway to the Mare Indicum, the sea which lay to the east of India. He vainly searched for a way to get past the barrier islands but could not find one, so he sailed on, looking for a northern promontory. Instead of finding an end to the barrier he found that the strip of land steadily widened, so he continued his voyage northward.

That Verrazzano did not tarry near Cape Hatteras is no great mystery, as the region’s turbulent waters, shallow sandbars and the frequent storms have caused it to be known as the “Graveyard of the Atlantic”.

In a letter to Francis I, Verrazzano wrote that he was convinced that he had discovered the beginning of the Pacific Ocean, from which an access could be gained to China. This report led to the introduction of a major error in the depiction of North America in contemporary maps and had considerable impact on the history of exploration in North America, as subsequent expeditions went looking for a passage to the Pacific Ocean in the middle latitudes of the continent.

During the northward voyage, he did not notice the entrances to the Chesapeake Bay or the Delaware River, as he kept far from the coast. He entered New York Bay and observed what appeared to be a large lake; we now believe that he had seen the entrance to the Hudson River. He then sailed past Long Island, entered Narragansett Bay nad then moved northwards. He explored the coast up past Maine, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, after which he returned to France by 8 July 1524.

Prior to Verrazzano’s voyage, the Caribbean Islands and the South American continental landmass had been explored by the Spanish and Portuguese, and the Canadian Atlantic Coast had been explored by John Cabot as an agent of the British, but the question of whether those two regions were connected by land had yet to be determined. In a letter to King Francis I, dated prior to his return to France, he recorded the earliest description of a continuous American North Atlantic coast based on eye-witness experience, and gave the first ethnological account of North America Indians.

Giovanni da Verrazzano arranged a second voyage with support from French backers in 1527, which reached the coast of Brazil and returned with a cargo of brazilwood. Although it did not find the desired passage to the Pacific Ocean, this partial success inspired his final voyage, which sailed from France in the spring of 1528. On an island in the Lesser Antilles, Verrazzano landed with a party and was taken by Caribs, killed, and eaten within sight of his crew, possibly in the presence of his brother Gerolamo Verrazzano.

This is part of a world map that was created in 1527 by Visconte Maggiolo, a distinguished Italian portolan chart maker and sailor. Displayed here is the section showing the American continent. The shape given to the landmasses and the Italianized French names inscribed along the coastline correspond with those appearing on the map drawn in 1529 by Girolamo de Verrazzano, Giovanni’s brother. The original Maggiolo map was stored in the Ambrosiana Library in Milan until 1943, when the library was destroyed in an air raid and the map was lost. Several reproductions survive, and the reproduction from which this black and white image was scanned is quite a work of art.

It was only after the universal adoption of Ptolemy’s Geography that placing north on top became a standard practice. Earlier maps were oriented as the cartographer saw fit. Given the orientation of the writing on this map, it seems that Maggiolo placed the South Pole at the top, and the North Pole at the bottom. Let me take a moment to flip this around for you.

OK, that’s a little better.

North America – or whatever was known of it or suspected to exist – was named “Francesca” after Francis I, Verrazzano’s sponsor. The same area was called Nova Gallia, or New France, on the map of Gerolamo Verrazzano. Terra Florida refers to the Floridian Peninsula, then within the realm of the Spaniards. The northern part of the continent becomes especially narrow around today’s Cape Hatteras, where Giovanni da Verrazzano appears to have believed existed a clear path to Mare Indicum, meaning “The Indian Sea”, a.k.a. the Pacific Ocean.