Leonardo da Vinci and Verrazzano’s Royal Discovery of New York (1524-2024)

In the archive of Verrazzano Castle in Greve in Chianti, Professor Stefaan Missinne, discoverer of the da Vinci Globe dating from 1504, stumbled upon the 500-year-old travel report by the Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano. This led to Windsor Castle, where the only world map dating from c. 1515 portraying an open seaway between Florida, as an island, and Newfoundland, was found among the papers of Leonardo da Vinci. Verrazzano did meet with Magellan in Seville in 1517 prior to his historical departure, but did Leonardo, while living in France between 1516 and 1519, influence his young royal employer and his Tuscan compatriot in any way? Astonishingly, the families of Verrazzano and da Vinci had been neighbors in Florence. In this reassessment of Verrazzano´s travel report, the author offers new evidence on Leonardo and Verrazzano. The Codex Cèllere, at the Pierpont Morgan Library, now takes its rightful place as New York´s literary birth certificate.