07/08/2017
America: Many writers have assumed that the Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci (whom Ralph Waldo Emerson called “a thief” and “pickle dealer at Seville”) was a con man who never explored the New World and doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as Christopher Columbus, much less have his name honored in the continent’s name. Deeper investigation reveals that Vespucci, born in Florence in 1454, did indeed sail to the New World with the expedition of Alonso de Ojeda in 1499, parting with him even before land was sighted in the West Indies. Vespucci, sailing in his own ship, then discovered and explored the mouth of the Amazon, subsequently sailing along the northern shores of South America. Returning to Spain in 1500, he entered the service of the Portuguese and the following year explored 6,000 miles along the southern coast of South America. He was eventually made Spain’s pilot major and died at the age of fifty-eight of malaria contracted on one of his voyages. Vespucci not only explored unknown regions but also invented a system of computing exact longitude and arrived at a figure computing the earth’s equatorial circumference only fifty miles short of the correct measurement. It was, however, not his many solid accomplishments but a mistake made by a German mapmaker that led America to be named after him—and this is probably why his reputation suffers even today Vespucci (who had Latinized his name to Americus Vespucci) wrote many letters about his voyages, including one to the notorious Italian ruler Lorenzo de’ Medici in which he described “the New Word.” But several of his letters were rewritten and sensationalized by an unknown author, who published these forgeries as Four Voyages in 1507. One of the forged Letters was read by the brilliant young German cartographer Martin Waldseemuller, who was so impressed with Vespucci’s account that he included a map of the New World in an appendix to his book Cosmographiae Introductio, boldly labeling the land “America.” Wrote Waldseemuller in his Latin text, which also included the forged letter: “ By now, since these parts have been more extensively explored and another 4th part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius (as will appear from what follows); I see no reason why it should not be called Amerigo, after Americus, the discoverer, or indeed America, since bout Europe and Asia have a feminine form from the names of women. Waldseemüller’s map roughly represented South America and when cartographers finally added North America the original name; the great geographer Gerhardus Mercator finally gave the name “America” to all of the western hemisphere. Vespucci never tried to have the New World named after him or to belittle his friend Columbus, who once called him “a very worthy man.” The appellation America gained in usage because Columbus refused all his life to admit that he had discovered a new continent, wanting instead to believe that he had come upon an unexplored region in Asia. Spain stubbornly refused to call the New World anything but Columbia until the 18th century, but to no avail. Today Columbus is credited for his precedence only in story and song (“Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean”), while Amerigo Vespucci is honored by hundreds of words ranging from American know-how to American cheese.
