Historian Alwyn Ruddock claimed to have found evidence that the navigator Giovanni Caboto ('John Cabot') who discovered North America in 1497 {received backing from the Italian community in London for his voyage to North America. In particular, she suggested he found a patron in the form of Fr. Giovanni Antonio de Carbonariis, an Augustinian friar who was also the deputy to the papal tax collector Adriano Castellesi. Ruddock suggested that it was Carbonariis, who certainly accompanied Cabot's 1498 expedition and who was on good terms with the King, who introduced the explorer to Henry VII for the discovery expedition. Beyond this, Ruddock claimed that Cabot received a loan from an Italian banking house in London 'to go and discover new lands'.