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New RAI Docufilm Debuted in New York on the 500th Anniversary of the Arrival of Renaissance Navigator Giovanni Da Verrazzano
institutions, organized the preview. Tuscany served as the shooting location for almost all of the hourlong docufilm. It features dramatic reenactments starring Carlo Pedersoli Jr. as Da Verrazzano and actor Neri Marcoré as the narrator. It will soon be broadcast on Italy’s Rai 3 channel. The film’s director is Giuseppe Pedersoli, and its Executive Producer is Alan Friedman. The Rai Producer is Gianluca Casagrande. Despite being five hundred years old, the film offers some revealing insights and a unique historical perspective. The film shows that Da Verrazzano was in many ways more important than Christopher Columbus because he actually set foot in North America and mapped the entire East Coast of North America from North Carolina up to Newfoundland, whereas Columbus stayed in the Caribbean. A section of the film focuses on Da Verrazzano’s interactions with the indigenous peoples of North America he encountered during his journey. We discover that, unlike the Spanish conquistadors, Da Verrazzano had uniformly friendly relations with the tribes he met along the Eastern Coast of North America and treated them with respect and admiration. He spent two weeks happily trading goods, dining together, and learning about the ways of the Narragansett indigenous people in what is today Rhode Island. Thanks to the work of Florentine archivist Marco Calafati, the film reveals for
The film is entitled “Giovanni Da Verrazzano: From the Renaissance to New York City” and is directed by Giuseppe Pedersoli and produced by Beaver Lake Pictures in collaboration with Rai Documentari
A new and revealing documentary about the life of the 16th-century Italian explorer Giovanni Da Verrazzano made its debut in New York City on April 17. On April 17, 1524, the 500th anniversary of Da Verrazzano’s ship’s arrival in what is now New York Harbor, the film premiered. Senior Italian politicians, executives from the National Italian American Foundation, and the director, Giuseppe Pedersoli, attended a special screening of the film “Giovanni Da Verrazzano: From the Renaissance to New York City” at The Paley Center. The National Italian American Foundation, as well as other U.S. and Italian
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the first time on camera the original March 1523 loan documents from the Gondi Bank, found in the family’s archives. These pages confirm the 700-scudo investment in the Da Verrazzano voyage. This initial funding, together with Antonio Gondi’s personal interventions, would prove decisive in getting the King of France to approve the voyage. The National Committee on Anniversaries of the Presidenza del Consiglio, the Italian Ministry of Culture, the Region of Tuscany, the National Italian American Foundation, the Italian American Forum, Acsi, and Stefano Ricci SpA collaborated on “Giovanni Da Verrazzano: From the Renaissance to New York City.”
NIAF and CIBPA-NF Announce Strategic Partnership The Italian American and Italian Canadian Organizations to Collaborate on Cultural, Charitable and Citizenship Initiatives
The National Italian American Foundation (NIAF) and the National Federation of Canadian Italian Business and Professional Associations (CIBPANF) announced the establishment of a strategic partnership between the two leading organizations representing the Continued on page 5