John Cabot - Early Life

Early Life

John Cabot appears in the Venetian records in 1471 when he was accepted into the religious confraternity of St John the Evangelist. Since this was one of the city's prestigious confraternities, this suggests that he was already a respected member of the community. He may have been born slightly earlier than 1450, which is the approximate date most commonly given for his birth.

Following Cabot's acquisition of full Venetian citizenship in 1476, he would have become eligible to engage in maritime trade, including the trade to the eastern Mediterranean, which was the source of much of Venice's wealth. He presumably became engaged in this trade shortly thereafter. He is mentioned in a document of 1483 selling a slave in Crete whom he had acquired while in the territories of the Sultan of Egypt, which then comprised most of what is now Palestine, Syria and the Lebanon. This is not sufficient to prove Cabot's later assertion that he had visited Mecca, which he said in 1497 to the Milanese ambassador in London. He may have acquired better knowledge of the origins of the oriental merchandise he would have been dealing in (such as spices and silks) than most Europeans at that time.

"Zuan Cabotto" (i.e. John Cabot) is mentioned in a variety of Venetian records of the 1480s. These indicate that by 1484 he was married to Mattea and already had at least two sons. Cabot's sons are named in his 1496 royal patent as Ludovico, Sebastian, and Sancto. The Venetian sources also contain references to Cabot's being involved in house building during his time there. This may be the experience on which he later promoted himself as a civil engineer in Spain.

Cabot appears to have gotten into financial trouble in the late 1480s and had left Venice as an insolvent debtor by 5 November 1488. He moved to Valencia where his creditors attempted to have him arrested by sending a lettere di raccomandazione a giustizia ("a letter of recommendation to justice") to the authorities. While in Valencia, "John Cabot Montecalunya" (as he is referred to in local documents) proposed plans for improvements to the harbour. These proposals were rejected, however. Early in 1494 he moved on to Seville, where he proposed, was contracted to build and, for five months, worked on the construction of a stone bridge over the Guadalquivir river. This project was abandoned following a decision of the City Council on 24 December 1494. After this Cabot appears to have sought support for an Atlantic expedition in Seville and Lisbon, before moving on to England. It therefore seems likely that he would have arrived in England around the middle of 1495.