Amerigo Vespucci

Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 - February 22, 1512) was an Italian merchant and cartographer who voyaged to and wrote about the Americas. His exploratory journeys along the eastern coastline of South America convinced him that a new continent had been discovered, a bold contention in his day when everyone (except the Portuguese), including Christopher Columbus, thought the seafaring trailblazers setting out from European docks were travelling to East Asia and South Asia.

Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, as the third child of a respected family. His father was a notary for the Money Changers' Guild of Florence.

The role of Vespucci has been much debated, particularly due to two of his letters whose authenticity has been brought into doubt: the Mundus Novus (New World) and the Lettera (or "The Four Voyages"). While some have suggested that Vespucci was exaggerating his role and constructed deliberate fabrications, others have instead proposed that the two letters were forgeries written by others of the same period. Upon arriving off of the coast of South America, Amerigo wrote back to Italy announcing that the land masses they explored were much larger than anticipated and unlike the Asia described by earlier Europeans and, therefore, must be a New World, i.e., a previously unknown Fourth Continent, after Europe, Asia, and Africa.

It was the publication and widespread circulation of his letters that led Martin Waldseemüller to name the new continent America on his world map of 1507. Vespucci styled himself Americus Vespucius in his Latin writings, so Waldseemüller based the new name on the Latin form of Vespucci's first name, taking the feminine form America. (See also Naming of America.) Amerigo itself is an Italian form of the medieval Latin Emericus (see also Saint Emeric of Hungary), which through the German form Heinrich (in English, Henry) derived from the Germanic name Haimirich.

The two disputed letters claim that Vespucci made four voyages to America, while at most two can be verified from other sources. It is now generally accepted by historians that no voyage was made in 1497 (which allegedly began from Cádiz on May 10th of that year).

Statue at the Uffizi, Florence

His next voyage in 1499 was in the service of Spain with Hojeda as the fleet commander. They visited the coast of Venezuela. His last certain voyage in 1501–1502 was in service of Portugal, when he reached the bay of what is now Rio de Janeiro. The leader of this expedition was Gonçalo Coelho. On this voyage he sailed southward along the coast of South America. If his own account is to be believed, he reached the latitude of Patagonia before turning back; although this also seems doubtful, since his account does not mention the broad estuary of the Río de la Plata, which he must have seen if he had gotten that far south. Portuguese maps of South America following the voyage of Coelho and Vespucci do not show any land south of present-day Cananéia at 25º S, so this may represent the southernmost extent of their voyages. During the first half of this expedition in 1501, Vespucci mapped the two stars, Alpha Centauri and Beta Centauri as well as the stars of the constellation Crux. Although these stars were known to the ancient Greeks, gradual precession had lowered them below the European skyline so that they were forgotten.

Little is known of his last voyage in 1503–1504. It is not even known whether it actually took place. Amerigo Vespucci died in Seville, Spain, in 1512.

Vespucci's real historical importance may well more in his letters, whether he wrote them all or not, than in his discoveries. From these letters, the European public learned about the newly discovered Americas for the first time; their existence became generally known throughout Europe within a few years of the letters' publication.

References

*James A. Canaday, The Life of Amerigo Vespucci
*Robert Dinwiddie, Universe: The Definitive Visual Dictionary, (2005), DK Adult Publishing, pg 396.