Thornton expedition

1608 Italian expedition in South America

The Thornton expedition was a 1608 Tuscan expedition under Captain Robert Thornton, an Englishman, sent by Ferdinando I of Tuscany to explore northern Brazil and the Amazon River and prepare for the establishment of a settlement in northern coastal South America, which would serve as a base to export Brazilian wood to Renaissance Italy. The area that Thornton considered as a possible site of a Tuscan colony now lies in modern French Guiana, near Cayenne, which would be colonised by France in 1630. The expedition was the only attempt by an Italian state to colonise the Americas.

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