Which Italian explorer, sailing for France, discovered the New York Bay in 1524?

Giovanni da Verrazzano, a Florentine explorer sailing for King Francis I of France, entered New York Bay in 1524. His voyage produced the first surviving European description of the bay and the surrounding coast.

Verrazzano sailed aboard La Dauphine, leaving Madeira on 17 January 1524 after an earlier attempt had been disrupted by storms. He reached the coast of North America near Cape Fear in March and then headed north. On 17 April, he passed through the Narrows into what is now New York Harbor, observing the waterways and settlements around the harbor and Manhattan.

He named the bay New Angoulême in honor of Francis I, whose family name was associated with Angoulême. Verrazzano was searching for a western route to Asia, so he interpreted some of the coastal waterways as possible passages toward the Pacific. He continued north to Narragansett Bay, Cape Cod, Maine, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.

“Discovered” here means first documented European visit, not the first human knowledge of the region. The Lenape already lived in and used the harbor, and Henry Hudson’s 1609 voyage later became far more influential in European colonization and mapping.