The Italian Connection.

The Iberian maritime powers, Spain and Portugal, spearheaded European expansion in the era of Columbus, and the French and English crowns soon followed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with colonization attempts of their own. Yet many of the earliest voyages commissioned by the monarchs of these western European states were actually headed by Italian captains. Although his voyages laid the foundations for a Spanish overseas empire, for example, Christopher Columbus had originally come from the Italian city of Genoa. Similarly another Genoese sailor, John Cabot, led a 1497 expedition to the North American coast in the name of English king Henry VII. In addition Renaissance Italy's cultural and intellectual capital, Florence, produced two mariners who headed other significant early voyages of exploration in the service of foreign monarchs. Amerigo Vespucci sailed alternatively in...