This is a hybrid event taking place at Notre Dame's Rome Global Gateway (via Ostilia 15; metro line B, Colosseo) at 5:00 p.m. CET (12 noon Eastern) on Thursday, March 14, 2024. Registration is required for both online and in-person participation.
Did Leonardo da Vinci, while living in France between 1516 and 1519, influence his Tuscan compatriot Giovanni da Verrazzano, the first European to navigate along the U.S. coast in 1524? Did Verrazzano meet Ferdinand Magellan prior to his legendary circumnavigation? Astonishingly, the Verrazzano and da Vinci families had been neighbors in Florence, and a 1515 map surfaced among the Leonardo papers in Windsor Castle.
Belgian Professor Stefaan Missinne (Royal Geographical Society), the discoverer of the iconic da Vinci Globe, will deliver a lecture titled “Leonardo and Verrazzano: New Discoveries on the Occasion of the 500th Anniversary of the Earliest European Voyage to the United States, 1524–2024,” unveiling crucial new discoveries for the first time.
Additional remarks will be offered by Leonardo Rombai (Università di Firenze) and Francesco Guidi Bruscoli (Università di Firenze). Johan Ickx (Archivio Storico della Sezione per i rapporti con gli Stati, Segreteria di Stato, Holy See) will provide concluding comments.