Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Red/White Quilt of Historical RedWork Embroidery - John Cabot Explorer

Red/White Quilt of Historical RedWork Embroidery

John Cabot Explorer



John Cabot (ItalianGiovanni Caboto [dʒoˈvanni kaˈbɔːto]c. 1450 – c. 1500) was an Italian[3] navigator and explorer. His 1497 discovery of the coast of North America under the commission of Henry VII 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 elected Cape BonavistaNewfoundland, as representing Cabot's first landing site. However, alternative locations have also been proposed.


Like other explorers at those times, including Christopher Columbus, Cabot led an expedition on commission, in his case, England. Cabot planned to depart to the west from a northerly latitude where the longitudes are much closer together, and where, as a result, the voyage would be much shorter.[19] He still had an expectation of finding an alternative route to China.
Historians had thought that, on arrival in England, Cabot went to Bristol, a major maritime centre, to seek financial backers.[20] This was the only English city to have had a history of undertaking exploratory expeditions into the Atlantic. Cabot's royal patent, issued by the Crown in 1496, stated that all expeditions should be undertaken from Bristol, so his primary financial supporters were probably based in that city. In any case, it also stipulated that the commerce resulting from any discoveries must be conducted with England alone, with goods only being brought in through Bristol.[21] This would have made Bristol into a monopoly port, with sole right to engage in colonial trade. In stating this, Henry VII of England was presumably influenced by Iberian practices: Portugal having made Lisbon into such a monopoly port, while Spain was in the process of doing the same thing with Seville.
In the late 20th century, British historian Alwyn Ruddock found documentation that Cabot went first to London, where he received some financial backing from its Italian community. She suggested one patron was Father Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to Adriano Castellesi, the papal tax collector. Ruddock also suggested that Carbonariis accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition. She further suggested that the friar, on good terms with the King, introduced the explorer to King Henry VII. Beyond this, Ruddock stated that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London. As Ruddock ordered the destruction of all her research notes on her death in 2005, scholars have had to duplicate her research and rediscover documents.[22] The Cabot Project was formed at the University of Bristol in 2009 to research Cabot and the Bristol expeditions.[23] Francesco Guidi Bruscoli, of the University of Florence, found some of Ruddock's documentation, confirming that Cabot received money in March 1496 from the Bardi family banking firm of Florence.[24] The bankers located in London provided fifty nobles (£16 13s. 4d.) to support Cabot's expedition to "go and find the new land". This payment from the Florentine merchants would have represented a substantial contribution, although it was not enough to completely finance the expedition.[24]
On 5 March 1496 Henry VII gave Cabot and his three sons letters patent[2][25] with the following charge for exploration:
... free authority, faculty and power to sail to all parts, regions and coasts of the eastern, western and northern sea, under our banners, flags and ensigns, with five ships or vessels of whatsoever burden and quality they may be, and with so many and with such mariners and men as they may wish to take with them in the said ships, at their own proper costs and charges, to find, discover and investigate whatsoever islands, countries, regions or provinces of heathens and infidels, in whatsoever part of the world placed, which before this time were unknown to all Christians.
Those who received such patents had the right to assign them to third parties for execution.[20] His sons are believed to have still been minors at that time.

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