Fr. (Brother) Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis was an Augustinian Friar from Milan who sailed with John Cabot (alias Giovanni Caboto) during his 1498 expedition to North America, and may have even founded North America's oldest, and only medieval, church at Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador.
That Carbonariis was connected to John Cabot has been known since the 19th century, since a letter written to the Duke of Milan on 20 June 1498 indicates that ‘Messer Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis’ had accompanied Cabot’s recently-departed expedition. The Friar had left with five ships provided by the King.[1] The friar is also referred to in a letter from the Spanish envoy in London, Pedro de Ayala, who noted that one of the five ships in Cabot's expedition had been badly damaged in a storm and was forced to land in Ireland, leaving Cabot to sail on. The ambassador notes that on the damaged ship was ‘another Friar Buil’ - this being an allusion to Bernardo Buil, the Minim missionary who had accompanied Christopher Columbus's 1493 expedition. [2] While the ambassador's statement seems to imply that Carbonariis had a missionary intent, on the basis of this limited information, it was generally supposed Carbonariis was only a minor player in the expeditions, who may not, indeed, have got further than Ireland. So even though the historian James Williamson had ascertained that Carbonariis was 'a man of some importance', having served as an envoy between the Duke of Milan and Henry VII, the friar had received little attention from those interested in the Bristol discovery voyages.[3] This has begun to change with the publication of Alwyn Ruddock's claims about the friar.
Alwyn Ruddock of the University of London was one of the world's foremost experts on John Cabot's expedition. But when she died in December 2005 all of her research was destroyed in line with the instructions in her will. A subsequent search by Dr Evan Jones of the University of Bristol has, however, found out a fair amount about what she claimed to have discovered and has, moreover, been able to verify a number of her claims. This includes at least some of the things she had found out about Carbonariis - such as the fact that he was an Augustinian friar who had been educated in Pavia. Crucially, she has also found that Carbonariis had been serving as the deputy papal tax collector in England. Since his principal, Adriano Castellesi had been in Rome since 1494, this meant that Carbonariis was in effective control of one of the most lucrative clerical appointments in England – for this was a period in which the Church owned about one third of the land in England and the Pope took ten per cent of the income generated from that property.[4] A man in Carbonariis' position would thus be both rich and well connected, with ready access to the King.
Fr. Giovanni Antonio emerges as a key player in Ruddock's account of John Cabot's voyages. She claims that he was the explorer's most important backer in England, having arranged for him to get a loan from an Italian bank after his arrival in England in 1495. Even more importantly, she suggests that it was Carbonariis who secured Cabot his audience with Henry VII of England. And this led to Cabot being granted his Letters patent for westwards exploration. Ruddock also claims that Carbonariis outfitted a ship, called the Dominus Nobiscum, which accompanied the 1498 expedition. This apparently contained a number of other Italian friars who, with Carbonariis, went on to establish a church and religious community in Newfoundland. While there is no suggestion that this community lasted more than a few years, this would have been North America's first Christian settlement. This church itself appears to have been named after the church of San Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples, which was the mother church of a group of reformed Augustinian Friars called the 'Carbonara'. Dr Ruddock suggested that the community was located at what is now Carbonear, Newfoundland and Labrador, the modern name being a relic survival of the 15th-century settlement.
Ruddock's book review and surviving letters do not indicate the sources on which she based her claims about the North American settlement. Nevertheless, an article published in August 2009 has validated more of her claims - in particular, those that relate to the 1499 voyage undertaken by William Weston (explorer).[5] Evan Jones and his co-researchers, Margaret Condon (University of Bristol) and Dr Francesco Guidi Bruscoli (University of Florence), are currently carrying out further investigations of Dr Ruddock's claims as part of The Cabot Project.