Francois I, instead sought to release the Italians from some of their fortune, and recruited his wealthy cousin, Charles De Bourbon, to assist him. In the summer of 1515, they led an army of German Mercenaries (Landsnechts) into Italy, capturing the towns of Marignano and Milan; but the venture had been costly and left France dangerously short of cash.
In 1519, when the role of Emperor was up for grabs after the death of Maximillian I; she put her son's name forward as his successor, but he lost to Charles of Austria; who would become Charles V. From then on he would be her mortal enemy, and Louise would work constantly to one-up him.
Fueled by the successes of and Cortes and Magellan, her focus became global. In 1522, when Pigafetta published his Transylvanus; a narrative on the Spanish circum-navigation, she had it translated into French and read every word, comsumed by a passion to accomplish similar feats for her beloved Francois.
As it happened, there were many Italian merchants then living in Lyons, driven out of their former homeland by Spanish and French foreign policies; and they too were interested in finding the best commercial route to the Orient. In their employ was an experienced sea captain, originally from Florence; Giovanni De Verrazano, who would come to the attention of Louise and the French Court.
Though backed by France, the expedition would have to appear to be private, for political reasons; but all accounts of Verrazano's indicate that his mission was an official one. The map of his voyage, prepared in 1529 by his brother, bears the inscription: "perordine et Comandamto del Christianissime Re'di Francia" ("by order and command of His Most Christian Majesty of France") and a letter sent to Francis I, by Verrazano on his return states in part: "I wish to relate to Your Majesty the order of our navigation with respect to its cosmographic aspects..." and "I hope to be able to present in person to Your Majesty a more complete exposition of these theoretical data."
Initially, Giovanni began with four fully equipped ships, but ran into a storm at Brittany, and was forced to leave three of them behind. Instead, he had them outfitted as warships and dispatched them to do a bit of privateering along the coast of Spanish coast, while he left in the Dauphine, headed for Newfoundland.
On March 1, 1524; Verrazano wrote , "there appeared a new land which no one had ever seen before, either in earlier times or in our own." To establish the position of this territory in relation to Florida, he headed south, but then fearing to "fall foul of the Spaniards," he turned back, reaching present-day North Carolina on March 25; and then followed the coast, claiming all the land for the King of France; despite the fact that it was already inhabited and well governed.
From there, he moved along the coast, impressed with the beauty that surrounded him. He called these lands 'Archadia', which in Greek and Roman classics was a term used to describe a Pastoral Paradise'. Along the way he encounted many Canadians, finding them to be friendly and "some and best disciplined" people he had ever encountered.
Once out of Canada, in Casco Bay, he was not so lucky. There he encountered open hostility at the place he dubbed "the land of the evil men". "The natives," he wrote, "bore no resemblance to those we had seen previously. These were as cruel and vicious as we were courteous. They were so barbarous that, for all our friendly signals, we were never able to communicate with them." I wonder though if those same 'barbarous' men had sailed onto the shores of France at the time, they would have been met with a friendly welcome, and what they would have had to say about the natives of France. Verrazano was looked on as an invader, and many such invaders had been kidnapping people from North America (Turtle Island) for many years, selling them into slavery. They were wise to be cautious.
Still following the shoreline in a northeasterly direction, Verrazano sailed the whole length of a coast "more accessible and devoid of forests," dominated "by high mountains sloping down towards the shore," and fringed with many small islands (the first description of Maine) and then reached "that land discovered long ago by the Bretons (newfoundland) Somewhere in the fifteen hundred miles between Florida and Cape Breton, he had hoped to find the breach leading from the Atlantic to Asia, but everywhere his way had been blocked by the continental barrier.
However, his voyage was still a success, because even though both the English and Portuguese had already explored the Newfoundland area extrensively, nothing was known of what lay between Florida and Cape Breton; and Verrazano was able to establish the existence of a single, continuous coastline from one to the other, thereby removing this expanse from the realm of conjecture. The Atlantic seaboard of the North American continent was now charted in its entirety for the first time in history.
According to Giovanni's brother, he was later murdered and eaten by cannibals; so he didn't fare well either.
