Giovanni de Verrazano (pron vay-rah-tsah'-he), aka Juan Florin, Juan Florentino or The Frenchman, was born in Florence, Italy, in 1485, but worked under a commission from the French crown. During his early career, he traversed the coastline of North America and Canada, sending letters back to Francis I, king of France, containing detailed descriptions of all he saw. These letters show that he discovered the Hudson River before Henry Hudson, but he only sailed as far as modern-day Manhattan, so didn't realise it was a river. Instead Verrazano believed that he'd found a 'large lake'. He made it as far north as Newfoundland before returning to Europe in 1524. He was soon back, but this time it was in his other guise, as a pirate. He had first experimented with such activities in 1522, when he had taken a ship belonging to Hernán Cortés, a Spanish conquistador and now governor of the country, just off the coast of Mexico. He took pearls and sugar, as well as Mexican gold worth 80,000 ducats. At the time, Europe was alight with the news of the Spanish getting rich from their conquests in South America. Many countries despatched 'privateers', or crews with an official remit to intercept the Spanish and Portuguese ships, thus diverting the wealth into other countries. France's monarch, Francis I, was the one who provided Verrazano with a ship and crew to do just this. The age of the pirates was well and truly born.
Peter Martyr, an eyewitness, wrote letters concerning Verrazano's exploits at sea. He talked of ships lying in wait for the Spanish vessels, then dramatic chases and cannon fire. In 1521, Verrazano himself was boasting of owning four vessels for such grisly work. In 1523, the pirate was intercepted by the Spanish, whilst in possession of seven captured ships. He was forced to relinquish them. Yet another source said that he had fifteen ships at the time. What is certain is that Verrazano's notoriety as a pirate was growing steadily with each passing year.
Verrazano's crew had a reputation in the Caribbean as the worst kind of pirate. They were cut-throats, who would kill automatically without mercy or reason. They just wanted the loot and would sink any ship, as soon as its cargo had been carried away, with the loss of life of all on board. He was also responsible for abduction. He stole a child from a tribe in North Carolina, USA to take back to France as a curiousity. He attempted to take a young woman from the same tribe too, but she managed to escape. By the time he was hanged for piracy, in Puerto del Pico, Spain, in November, 1527, he had self-confessed to having plundered and sunk 150 ships, galleons and galleys. The estimated value of all the cargo that he had taken was nearly two million dollars.
Other sources state that he was never captured by the Spanish nor taken back to Spain for execution. The alternative story says that, in 1528, he achored off the coast of Guadeloupe, in the Lesser Antilles and saw members of the native population on the shore. While his crew, including his brother, Girolamo, stayed aboard the ships, Verrazano waded ashore. He was immediately set upon, killed and eaten, as the people were cannibals. Those on the ships were out of gunfire range and couldn't reach him in time to save him. Later commentators have noted that, while the population of Guadeloupe were cannibals, they only ate those whom they had defeated in battle. It can be deduced that it wasn't a friendly landing, which had led to Verrazano being eaten. It had been a fight, which the Europeans had lost.
What should historians make of these contradictory stories? It might be worth noting that Giovanni de Verrazano came from a notable family in Italy. His letters, alongside his brother's maps, were important for navigation in the New World for a century; while historians still find them invaluable as primary sources of information about that period. Spanish records are emphatic on the fact that they did hang him, with a charge of piracy against Spanish and Portuguese ships in the Caribbean Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. It is tantalising to consider that his family did not want such a story associated with their name, hence they embraced an alternative death for him. Being eaten by cannibals in South America is a much juicier narrative and it is this one which has endured.
However, the reality is even more murky than that. It seems that a Florentine man was captured and eaten by cannibals, but his name was not given in the account. What was told was that the ship and the rest of the crew were English, it was only the pilot who was Italian. Given the English records of the time, it is likely that this man was Albert de Prato. However, a chronicler of the period, John Baptista Ramusius, noted the nationality and the fact that Verrazano had disappeared from the historical record around this time. He put two and two together and inserted Verrazano's name as the consumed Florentine.
* Subacuatico-CEDAM Museum, Puerto Aventuras: Some of the exhibits recovered from the seabed come from ships which may have been sunk by Giovanni de Verrazano and his men.
* Yucatán Strait: It was this stretch of water, separating Mexico from Cuba, where Giovanni de Verrazano and his fleet of pirates waited ready to attack Spanish galleons. Just visit any beach on the Yucatán Peninsula or its islands, or sail out into the sea, and you will be on the trail of Giovanni de Verrazano.
For many people today, the pirates of the Caribbean conjures images of Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom swashbuckling across the silver screen. For those who lived in the coastal towns and islands of the Yucatán Peninsula, just a couple of centuries ago, they were a dreadful and terrifying reality. Traces of these pirates are still there for those who dare to follow the trail. 
A final word about the mercados at the Mayan archaeological ruins. At some places, like Tulúm, the mercado is outside the gates and could be avoided if desired. At others, like Chichén Itzá, the inner pathways are lined with sellers. There is a reason for this. The villages around Chichén Itzá are exclusively Mayan, but also very poor. When the ruins were opened up for tourism, these people watched distant owners and tour operators getting very rich on the proceeds, but none of it was trickling into the local community. In the grip of poverty, these people argued that all of this was being done around their own ancestral buildings and artifacts, dispossessing them in the process. After a prolonged struggle for justice, they earned the right to set up their mercado inside the ruins. Everyone you see selling items inside the ruins will be a local Mayan villager, as no-one else is allowed to do so.
In pre-Christian times, Isla Mujeres was sacred to the Goddess Ix Chel, who governed over childbirth, midwifery and medicine. Shrines and pottery depictions of this jaguar eared deity have been found all over the island. In a rite of passage into womanhood, the Mayans would fashion clay idols of Ix Chel, travel alone to Isla Mujeres and smash the idol onto the floor of the temple. It was these shattered images that Hernández discovered. Pregnant women would have entered Her sweatbaths before giving birth, then again afterwards. Women struggling to conceive would have visited Her sanctuary. She is referred to, in Mayan literature, as 'grandmother' and She is sometimes represented by a waning moon. This crone goddess is often shown with claws in place of hands, crossed bones upon Her skirt and a serpent on Her head. In this way, Ix Chel is also linked with war, with a fearsome aspect, hungry for victims. She is part of the cycle of life. She takes the dead and She protects those being born. 
In more recent times, Isla Mujeres has become a place of pilgrimage for the Mother of Christ, Mary, who acts as the island's patron. In 1890, three statuettes of the Virgin were discovered on the tip of Quintana Roo by three fishermen. The Virgins were carved of wood with porcelain hands and faces. Each of the three fisherman took one of the statuettes back to their own homes. One of them, Christiano Avila Celis, brought his to Isla Mujeres, where it was enshrined in a small palm chapel. Many years later, a decision was taken to move Her to the church, but that did not prove easy. It took the combined efforts of several men to lift Her, as She had suddenly become so heavy. Nevertheless they succeeded, but, as She was carried out, the whole chapel burst into flame to the shock of all watching.
