south coast of Newfoundland, it is true; he also gave the names of
Nova Gallia and Francesca to the coast regions of eastern North
America, and distinctly intended to take possession of these on behalf
of the French Crown. But his work in this direction did not lead
directly to the creation of the French colony of Canada, because, when
he returned from America, Francis I was at war with Spain, and could
pay no attention to Verrazano's projects. His voyage is worth
recording in the present volume only for these two reasons: he
certainly put it into the minds of French people that they might found
an empire in North America; and he inspired geographers for another
hundred years with the false idea that the great North American
Continent had a very narrow waist, like the Isthmus of Panama, and
that the Pacific Ocean covered the greater part of what is now called
the United States. This mistake arose from his looking across the
narrow belts or peninsulas of sand in North Carolina and Virginia, and
seeing vast stretches of open water to the west. These were found, a
hundred years afterwards, to be merely large shallow lagoons of sea
water, but Verrazano thought they were an extension of the Pacific
Ocean.

Nevertheless, Verrazano's voyage developed into the French
colonization of Canada, just as Cabot drew the British to
Newfoundland, Columbus the Spaniards to Central and South America, and
Amerigo Vespucci showed the Portuguese the way to Brazil. The modern
nations of western Europe owe the inception of their great colonies in
America to four Italians.