Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
1507
The Waldseemüller map names the New World after Amerigo Vespucci, not Columbus. Even
though the mapmaker later changes this on another map, the name sticks.
Geographic Voices
Amerigo Vespucci in a letter written to Lorenzo Medici
In days past, I gave your excellency a full account of my return, and if I remember aright, wrote
you a description of all those parts of the New World which I had visited in the vessels of his serene
highness the King of Portugal. Carefully considered, they appear truly to form another world, and
therefore we have, not without reason, called it the New World. Not one of all the ancients had any
knowledge of it, and the things which have been lately ascertained by us transcend all their ideas.
They thought there was nothing south of the equinoctial line but an immense sea, and some poor and
barren islands. The sea they called the Atlantic, and if sometimes they confessed that there might be
land in that region, they contended it must be sterile, and could not be otherwise than uninhabitable.
The present navigation has controverted their opinions, and openly demonstrated to all that they
were very far from the truth.
Born in 1454, Amerigo Vespucci has become a historical mystery figure. Although his name was at-
tached to the enormous lands of the New World, he was later vilified for his supposed deceit in usurping
Columbus. From a successful Florentine family, Vespucci went to work for the powerful and wealthy
Medici banking family. He was sent to Spain by the Medicis and became an outfitter of ships. In 1499,
inspired by the news of Columbus, he joined an expedition of two ships that sailed to South America. In
1501, sailing for Portugal, he made another voyage, after which he determined that these lands were not
part of Asia but a new world. Vespucci's travels became far more famous in his day than those of Colum-
bus, leading the mapmaker to use his name to anoint the New World he was adding to his map.
