Verrazzano Day at Palazzo Gondi

To mark the 490th anniversary of the discovery of New York Bay, the 50 years since the inauguration of the Verrazzano Bridge in New York and the Verrazzano Day celebrations, on Thursday 17 April 2014, at Palazzo Gondi, the Marchese Bernardo Gondi and the historian Marco Calafati presented the Gondi documents on the financing of the first voyage of the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano to the “New World”.

In 1523 Antonio Gondi, a Florentine banker and merchant, accepted Giovanni da Verrazzano's proposal to raise and finance the considerable sum required for the voyage, almost 4,000 gold scudi. The largest private investors were the Gondi with 700 scudi, of which Antonio contributed 570, alongside 100 scudi from “Monna Maria de’ Gondi” and 30 scudi given by the cook, “servant of Antonio Gondi”; a further 2,700 scudi came from associates of the Banco Gondi or from relatives. The remaining 600 scudi were financed by French merchants and by King Francis I.

To thank the Gondi for their personal contribution, Verrazzano dedicated one of the small islands discovered along the coast to Marie Catherine de Pierrevive, Antonio's wife, naming it “Pietra Viva”. In memory of the family's involvement in the discovery of the New World, America, every generation of the Gondi family has its Amerigo. To celebrate this event, one of the wines of the family estate, Tenuta Bossi - Marchesi Gondi at Pontassieve, was named Ser Amerigo.