Vespucci, Amerigo

Vespucci, Amerigo (1454–1512), born in Florence, early entered the commercial house of the Medici, and after 1492 resided in Spain as their agent. According to his own account, he obtained a commission to fit out 12 ships for the king of Spain (1495) and set sail from Cadiz (May 10, 1497), reaching the mainland of the American continent (June 16, 1497) eight days before John Cabot. These statements are not convincing and the consensus of scholarly opinion is that he never made this voyage. He made a “second” voyage across the Atlantic (1499), entered the service of Dom Manuel of Portugal (1501), and made a “third” voyage to America via Cape Verde (1502); also in the service of Portugal, he made his last voyage (1503), intending to reach Malacca, whose location he completely misjudged. He landed at Bahia in the present Brazil, returning to Lisbon (1504). All knowledge concerning these voyages rests on Vespucci's doubtful accounts. He received Spanish letters of naturalization (1505), and the following year was appointed chief pilot of Spain, a post he held until his death. In 1503 he wrote to Lorenzo di Medici from Lisbon, describing the alleged Portuguese voyage of 1501–2, and the supposed 1499 voyage. This document is lost, but a Latin translation was printed variously as Mundus Novus and Epistola Albericii de Novo Mundo. His letter written from Portugal (1504) to Pier Soderini, Gonfalonier of the Republic of Florence, still exists in the original printing in Italian. From this a French version was made, and from this in turn a Latin translation was published (1507). The last was used in Waldseemuller's Cosmographiæ Introductio (1507), which contains the first use of the name America. An English translation of his letters was published in 1894.