Did you know that the history of Chianti is inextricably linked to the New World, far beyond the imagination aboard a large timeless sailing ship?
To sail on the crest of the wave and trace the route were great navigators and cartographers. It so happened that over five hundred years ago, the Florentine Amerigo Vespucci and Giovanni da Verrazzano born in Greve, floating across the seas, respectively first reached the Atlantic coasts and the shores of New York Bay. A bond that can be rediscovered today by walking through the alleys of Montefioralle, one of the most charming medieval villages in Italy, where time seems to stand still like when the Vespucci family lived there.
Or going to discover not too far from the center of Greve in Chianti, where in the square like a “pin” stands his monumental statue in memory, the beauty of the gardens and the ancient cellars of Castello da Verrazzano, the birthplace of the homonymous explorer. In these splendid and enchanted places two large plaques recall their deeds and their unforgettable personalities.
If with Amerigo, a sustaining friend of Christopher Columbus and putative father of the new continent, the slab commemorates the end of the descent of the great discoverers, from the foundations where Giovanni was born remind of the discovery of the Hudson Bay. In fact, on April 17, 1963, on the occasion of his landing on the coast which now connects Brooklyn to Staten Island, three original stones of the castle were walled together with three others from the French cliffs from where he sailed, right at the entrance of the famous viaduct that bears his name. The real curiosity is that on the same day at the same time, three stones where the colossal towers of the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge rest were placed on the walls of the Chianti manor. Famous for being today the starting point of the famous New York marathon, as a long suspension bridge which it is, it continues to join and unite figuratively and intrinsically the overseas where our explorers threw their anchors, to our territory.
Between adventure and desire of knowledge, and reversing for a second the route back to the old continent, we therefore suggest that you discover some of the places described above from where a good part of our and your history originates.
And centuries later our journey continues …
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