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John Cabot
John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto [dʒoˈvanni kaˈbɔːto]; c. 1450 – c. 1499) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.
Cabot is known today as Giovanni Caboto in Italian, Zuan Caboto in Venetian, Jean Cabot in French, and John Cabot in English. This resulted from a once-ubiquitous European tradition of nativizing names in local documents, something often adhered to by the actual persons themselves. (Many European names have shared origins which diverged culturally and linguistically, e.g. Charles rendered in German becomes Carl or Karl, and Jacques rendered in English becomes James.) Cabot signed his name as "Zuan Chabotto" in Venice, Zuan being a form of John typical to Venice. He continued to use this form in England, at least among Italians. He was referred to by his Italian banker in London as "Giovanni", in the only known contemporaneous document to use this version of his first name.
His surname, derived from the Latin caput (= head), refers to a type of fish, and was perhaps a nickname which became hereditary.
Cabot was born in Italy, the son of Giulio Caboto and his wife; he had a brother Piero. Gaeta (in the Province of Latina) and Castiglione Chiavarese (in the Province of Genoa) have both been proposed as his birthplace. The main evidence for Gaeta are records of a Caboto family residing there until the mid-15th century, but ceasing to be traceable after 1443.
Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish envoy and Cabot's contemporary in London, described him in a letter to the Spanish Crown in 1498 as "another Genoese like Columbus". John Cabot's son, Sebastian, said his father originally came from Genoa. Cabot was made a citizen of the Republic of Venice in 1476; as citizenship required a minimum of fifteen years' residency in the city, he must have lived in Venice from at least 1461.
Cabot may have been born slightly earlier than 1450, which is the approximate date most commonly given for his birth. In 1471 Cabot was accepted into the religious confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Since this was one of the city's prestigious confraternities, his acceptance suggests that he was already a respected member of the community.
Once he gained full Venetian citizenship in 1476, Cabot would have been eligible to engage in maritime trade, including the trade to the eastern Mediterranean that was the source of much of Venice's wealth. He presumably entered this trade shortly thereafter. A 1483 document refers to his selling a slave in Crete whom he had acquired while in the territories of the Sultan of Egypt, which then comprised most of what is now Israel, Syria and Lebanon.This is not sufficient to prove Cabot's later assertion that he had visited Mecca, which he said in 1497 to the Milanese ambassador in London. In this Mediterranean trade, he may have acquired better knowledge of the origins of the Eastern merchandise he would have been dealing in (such as spices and silks) than most Europeans at that time.
"Zuan Cabotto" is mentioned in a variety of Venetian records of the late 1480s. These indicate that by 1484 he was married to Mattea and already had multiple sons. His sons were Ludovico, Sebastian and Sancto. The Venetian sources contain references to Cabot's being involved in house building in the city. He may have relied on this experience when seeking work later in Spain as a civil engineer.
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John Cabot
John Cabot (Italian: Giovanni Caboto [dʒoˈvanni kaˈbɔːto]; c. 1450 – c. 1499) was an Italian navigator and explorer. His 1497 voyage to the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII, King of England is the earliest known European exploration of coastal North America since the Norse visits to Vinland in the eleventh century. To mark the celebration of the 500th anniversary of Cabot's expedition, both the Canadian and British governments declared Cape Bonavista, Newfoundland as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.
Cabot is known today as Giovanni Caboto in Italian, Zuan Caboto in Venetian, Jean Cabot in French, and John Cabot in English. This resulted from a once-ubiquitous European tradition of nativizing names in local documents, something often adhered to by the actual persons themselves. (Many European names have shared origins which diverged culturally and linguistically, e.g. Charles rendered in German becomes Carl or Karl, and Jacques rendered in English becomes James.) Cabot signed his name as "Zuan Chabotto" in Venice, Zuan being a form of John typical to Venice. He continued to use this form in England, at least among Italians. He was referred to by his Italian banker in London as "Giovanni", in the only known contemporaneous document to use this version of his first name.
His surname, derived from the Latin caput (= head), refers to a type of fish, and was perhaps a nickname which became hereditary.
Cabot was born in Italy, the son of Giulio Caboto and his wife; he had a brother Piero. Gaeta (in the Province of Latina) and Castiglione Chiavarese (in the Province of Genoa) have both been proposed as his birthplace. The main evidence for Gaeta are records of a Caboto family residing there until the mid-15th century, but ceasing to be traceable after 1443.
Pedro de Ayala, the Spanish envoy and Cabot's contemporary in London, described him in a letter to the Spanish Crown in 1498 as "another Genoese like Columbus". John Cabot's son, Sebastian, said his father originally came from Genoa. Cabot was made a citizen of the Republic of Venice in 1476; as citizenship required a minimum of fifteen years' residency in the city, he must have lived in Venice from at least 1461.
Cabot may have been born slightly earlier than 1450, which is the approximate date most commonly given for his birth. In 1471 Cabot was accepted into the religious confraternity of the Scuola Grande di San Giovanni Evangelista. Since this was one of the city's prestigious confraternities, his acceptance suggests that he was already a respected member of the community.
Once he gained full Venetian citizenship in 1476, Cabot would have been eligible to engage in maritime trade, including the trade to the eastern Mediterranean that was the source of much of Venice's wealth. He presumably entered this trade shortly thereafter. A 1483 document refers to his selling a slave in Crete whom he had acquired while in the territories of the Sultan of Egypt, which then comprised most of what is now Israel, Syria and Lebanon.This is not sufficient to prove Cabot's later assertion that he had visited Mecca, which he said in 1497 to the Milanese ambassador in London. In this Mediterranean trade, he may have acquired better knowledge of the origins of the Eastern merchandise he would have been dealing in (such as spices and silks) than most Europeans at that time.
"Zuan Cabotto" is mentioned in a variety of Venetian records of the late 1480s. These indicate that by 1484 he was married to Mattea and already had multiple sons. His sons were Ludovico, Sebastian and Sancto. The Venetian sources contain references to Cabot's being involved in house building in the city. He may have relied on this experience when seeking work later in Spain as a civil engineer.