A Venetian immigrant to the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and is regarded as the first Italian settler in what is now New York State. Pietro was born on the island of Malamocco in 1608 at the height of Venice’s commercial power. Pietro was a member of the influential and powerful Alberti family and the son of the secretary of the Ducal Treasury, At the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618 -1648), which resulted in eight million deaths from military engagements, famine and plague, Pietro decided at the age of 27 to seek a new life in the New World.Pietro signed on as a merchant seaman and sailed on July 10, 1634. and arrived in New Amsterdam on June 2, 1635. In the New World, Pietro became Peter. Four years later, he secured the deed of ownership for tobacco land from the Director General and Council of New Amsterdam. In 1642, he married a woman named Judith Manje and had seven children. The family lived in a home on Broad Streetand later moved to Alberti’s plantation property on Long Island (now Fort-Green, Brooklyn). They farmed the 100 acres until Pietro and Judith were killed in an Indian raid on November 9, 1655.