Giovanni Da Verrazzano (Called Also Veeeazani), a Florentine navigator, born about 1485, executed at Puerto del Pico, Spain, in November, 1527. He was of a good family of the Val di Greve near Florence, and went to France, where he found employment as a navigator. References in French annals make it possible that he visited the northern coast of America as early as 1508. He soon became famous as a corsair against the Spaniards and Portuguese, made valuable captures in 1521, and in 1522 captured the treasure ship in which Cortes was sending to Charles V. the rich spoils of Mexico, valued at more than $1,500,000. His next depredation on the Portuguese roused Spain and Portugal against him, and he was finally captured in September or October, 1527, taken to Spain, and executed by the emperor's orders. In 1556 Ramusio published in his collection of voyages a letter which he ascribed to Verrazzanoy purportifig-te-have been written at Dieppe, July 8, 1524, and giving to Francis I. an account of a voyage to the coast of North America and its exploration from lat.

34° to 50°. This letter was gradually received as authentic, and Verrazzano mentioned in American history as the earliest French explorer of the coast, and possibly the first to enter New York bay. Its authenticity was first attacked in 1864 by T. Buckingham Smith, who identified Verrazzano with the corsair Juan Florin of Spanish accounts, but was maintained by J. OarsonBrevoort in "Verrazzano, the Navigator" (8vo, New York, 1874). Henry 0. Murphy, after careful researches, rejects the letter as spurious in his "Voyage of Verrazzano, a Chapter on the Early History of Maritime Discovery in America " (8vo, New York, 1875). The attempted fraud is not attributed to Verrazzano, but to some one of his countrymen, anxious to secure for Italy the glory more credibly belonging to Estevan Gomez, a Portuguese, who went as chief pilot with Magellan, and has the credit of visiting the coast of Carolina and entering several rivers in 1525.