John Cabot

About

John Cabot (English: ; 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…