AlokeKumar/history

AMERIGO VESPUCCI

(1454-1512)


A Florentine navigator and pilot major of Castile, after whom America is named.


Amerigo Vespucci was an Italian merchant, explorer and cartographer. He played a senior role in two voyages which explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the second of these voyages he discovered that South America extended much further south than before known by the Europeans. This convinced him that this land was part of a new continent, a bold contention at a time when other European explorers crossing the Atlantic thought they were reaching Asia (the "Indies"). Vespucci's voyages became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to him were published between 1502 and 1504. In 1507, Martin Waldseemüller produced a world map on which he named the new continent "America" after Vespucci's first name, Amerigo.

The father of Amerigo Vespucci was Nastagio Vespucci, notary of the Money-Changer's Guild and his uncle was the learned Dominican Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, who had charge of Amerigo's education.

Meanwhile, Columbus had made his first two voyages to the West Indies, and he returned from the second in June 1496. At this time, he and Vespucci unquestionably met and conversed, and Amerigo appears to have been skeptical of the Admiral's belief that he had already reached the outskirts of Asia. Moreover, Vespucci's curiosity about the new lands had been aroused, together with a determination, though no longer young, to see them himself.

According to historians such as Martín Fernández de Navarrete, Germán Arciniegas and Gabriel Camargo Pérez, the first voyage of Amerigo Vespucci took place in 1497, probably in a trip organized by King Ferdinand, who wanted to clarify if the mainland of the landmass was far away from the island of Hispaniola, which had been discovered by Columbus.

The captain of this company, which set sail in May 1497 was Vicente Yañez Pinzón, captain of the Niña on Columbus's first voyage, and may have included Juan Diaz de Solis. Accompanying Vespucci was pilot and cartographer Juan de la Cosa (the then-famous captain who had sailed with Columbus in 1492). According to the first letter of Vespucci, they reached land at 16 degrees latitude, probably on the coast of La Guajira peninsula in present-day Colombia or the coast of Nicaragua. They then followed the coastal land mass of central America before returning to the Atlantic Ocean via the Straits of Florida between Florida and Cuba.

In 1503 the Castilian crown created the Casa de Contratación at Seville to govern trade with the New World, and in 1508 King Ferdinand established the office of pilot major as a part of the Casa. Amerigo was the first holder of the office, and it became his duty to train pilots, examine them for proficiency in their craft, and collect data regarding New World navigation. He remained pilot major until his death on Feb. 22, 1512, a month short of his fifty-eighth birthday.

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