A VERRAZZANO TRIBUTE.(Giovanni da Verrazzano)(Brief Article)

COMMENT

DEPT. OF CORRECTIONS

CHIANTI POSTCARD

THE CREATIVE LIFE

BIG NIGHT

Not long ago, Cavalier Luigi Cappellini and his wife, Silvia, gave a dinner party, at the Castello di Verrazzano, in Chianti, to mark the anniversary of the discovery of New York Bay, by Giovanni da Verrazzano, in 1524. Luigi, a springy, elegant Tuscan, is the owner of the castle that was the seat of the Verrazzano family for more than seven hundred years. In addition to making wine and olive oil and running the hunting parks, forests, and tenant farms of the original estate, Luigi has assumed the role of ambassador from Verrazzano to the City of New York, which keeps him in frequent transatlantic motion.

The castle is perched on a mountain spur high above the non-navigable River Greve. It is surrounded by vineyards and olive groves, and its crenellated medieval tower is just visible above a cluster of cypresses. The Verrazzano family was already ancient when Giovanni was born here, in 1485. When he embarked for the New World, in January of 1524, at the request of King Francis I of France, Europeans had explored Florida and Newfoundland, but the coastline in between was still terra incognita. After a subsequent voyage, Giovanni's brother Gerolamo drew the first good map of the Eastern Seaboard. Verrazzano was a true son of the Renaissance, a navigator, astronomer, mathematician, and humanist, whose main interest was geography, not gold. His observations on the natives of North America were sympathetic and anthropologically meticulous. (The only time he used the term "savage" was in describing the Indians of Maine who "made the most disparaging and dishonorable gestures that an uncouth person could possibly do, such as exposing their bare arses to us, all the while howling with laughter.") Giovanni da Verrazzano met a grisly end a few years later, when he was captured by natives on a Caribbean island; Gerolamo watched helplessly from a ship as the Indians on the beach killed his brother, cut him into pieces, and devoured him raw.