To go fast <i>(usually on two wheels of a four wheeled vehicle) </i>
"Blige! Ee anked it roun that corner mind!"

<b>Giovanni Caboto</b> (c. 1450 – c.1499), known in English as <b>John Cabot</b>, was an Italian navigator and explorer commonly credited as the first early modern European to discover Canadaand some countries of North America in 1497.

John Cabot was born in Italy, in a small country best known as Gaeta, in Latium. His name is mistakenly associated with Genoa, as some writers of recent times supported the belief he was, like Columbus, born there. In 1461 Cabot was living in Venice, where he achieved his citizenship. In about 1470 he married a Venetian woman, Mattea Bragadin, and they had three sons: Ludovico, Sebastiano and Sante.

A merchant like his father, Cabot traded in spices with the ports of the eastern Mediterranean, and became an expert mariner. Valuable goods from Asia - spices, silks, precious stones and metals - were brought either overland or up the Red Sea for sale in Europe. Venetians played a prominent part in this trade.

Then, about 1490, Cabot and his family moved to Valencia in Spain. It is probable that, like his fellow-countryman Christopher Columbus, Cabot wanted to be part of an expanding frontier of exploration, the Atlantic Ocean. The leaders in this enterprise were the Portuguese, and the Spanish were also interested. The monarchs of both countries wanted to find new routes to Asia and its riches - routes which would avoid the Mediterranean and the virtual monopoly on the spice trade held by the Italians. There was another motivation as well. In a deeply religious age, Europeans wanted to spread knowledge of Christianity, and to contain the spread of Islam.

However, neither Portugal or Spain was interested in John Cabot. The Portuguese pioneered their route to Asia by sailing down the African coast and around the Cape of Good Hope. And once Columbus had returned in triumph from his first transatlantic voyage in 1493 - he reached the Caribbean, but thought it was part of Asia - the Spanish likewise thought they had found their route to the east.

As a result, Cabot turned in 1494 or 1495 to England - to the merchants of the port of <u>Bristol</u>, where he settled with his family, and to the king, Henry VII. His scheme was to reach Asia by sailing west across the north Atlantic. He estimated that this would be shorter and quicker than Columbus' southerly route. Cabot was trying to go one better.

In England, Cabot received the backing he had been refused in Spain and Portugal. First,the merchants of <u>Bristol</u> agreed to support his scheme. They had sponsored probes into the north Atlantic from the early 1480s, looking for possible trading opportunities.