Biography of Amerigo Vespucci
A famous Italian navigator, born at Florence, 9 March, 1451; died
at Seville, 22 February, 1512; he was the third son of Ser Nastagio,
a notary of Florence, son of Amerigo Vespucci. His mother was
Lisabetta, daughter of Ser Giovanni, son of Ser Andrea Mini; her
mother was Maria, daughter of Simone, son of Francesco di Filicaia.
The date of Vespucci's birth, formerly much discussed, is now
definitively established by the books of the Ufficio delle Tratte,
preserved in the Reale Archivio di Stato of Florence, where the
following passage is found: "Amerigo, son of Ser Nastagio, son of
Ser Amerigo Vespucci, on the IX day of March MCCCCLI" (1452, common
style). The mother of Amerigo's father was Nanna, daughter of Mestro
Michele, of the Onesti of Pescia, and sister of Mestro Michele, the
father of Nicolè and of Francesco, who resided in the magistrato
supremo of the Priors in the Republic of Florence.
Vespucci received his first instruction from his uncle Giorgio
Antonio, a Platonic philosopher who was a teacher of the greater
part of the Florentine nobility. Amerigo cultivated the study of
literature, including that of the Latin language, as is shown by a
small autograph codex in the Biblioteca Ricardiana of Florence,
entitled "Dettati da mettere in latino" at the end of which there is
written the following: "This booklet was written by Amerigo Se
Anastagio Vespucci." He also wrote a letter in Latin to his father,
dated 19 October, 1476, in which he gives an account of his studies.
Possibly Vespucci had relations with Toscanelli, who, as is known,
died in 1482, two years after Amerigo left for Spain. Thereafter,
Amerigo devoted himself to the study of physics, geometry,
astronomy, and cosmography, in which sciences he made rapid
progress.
After the death of his father, which occurred about the year 1483,
Amerigo, perhaps on account of the unfortunate circumstances of his
family, became steward in the house of Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de'
Medici, with various charges that were multiplied in proportion as
he acquired the confidence and the affection of the sons of
Pierfrancesco, of whose rural and commercial interests he became
superintendent, as appears from numerous letters written to him,
which have recently been published. From 1478 to 1480 he was
attached to the embassy at Paris, under his relative Guido Antonio
Vespucci, ambassador of Florence to Louis XI of France. Accordingly,
he wrote many reports to the Signoria, which are preserved in the
Archivio di Stato at Florence. The sojourn of Vespucci at Paris, and
that of Duke Rene of Lorraine at Florence, earlier, explain why
Vespucci should have sent to Duke Rene' a copy, in Latin, of the
letter of the four voyages, written in Italian to the gondolfiere
perpetuo Piero Soderini, and why one of the earliest editions of
Vespucci's voyages (the third) should have been made at Paris in
1504. The offices that Vespucci held from the younger branch of the
house of Medici explain why the former, between November of 1491 and
February of 1492, joined, at Seville, Giannetto di Lorenzo Berardo
Berardi, chief of a house, established at that city, which had close
financial relations with the younger branch of the Medici, that is,
with Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his son. Through his intelligence,
he became one of the chief agents of that firm, which, later, had a
leading part in fitting out the oceanic expeditions that led to the
discovery of the New World.
The successful voyages of Christopher Columbus increased Vespucci's
desire to take a part in the general European movement to seek a
western passage to the Indies. Having obtained three ships from
Ferdinand, King of Castille, Vespucci was able to undertake his
first voyage. Accordingly, he set sail from Cadiz on 10 May, 1497,
sailing toward the Fortunate Islands, and then laying his course
towards the west. After twenty-seven or thirty-seven days, on 6 or
10 April, he touched the mainland (Guiana or Brazil?), and was well
received by the inhabitants. In this first voyage he may have
entered the Gulf of Mexico and coasted along a great portion of the
United States, as far as the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Then he returned
to Spain, and landed at Cadiz on 15 October, 1498. There is no other
relation of this first voyage than that contained in the first
letter of Amerigo Vespucci concerning the islands newly found in his
four voyages, addressed to Piero Soderini, Gonfaloniere of Florence.
On 16 May, 1499, Vespucci sailed from Cadiz on his second voyage,
with Alonzo de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. He directed his course to
Cape Verde, crossed the Equator, and saw land, on the coast of
Brazil, at 4° or 5° S., possibly near Aracati. From there, he
coasted along the Guianas and the continent, from the Gulf of Paria
to Maracaibo and Cape de la Vela; he discovered Cape St. Augustine
and the River Amazon, and made notable observations of the sea
currents, of the Southern Cross and other southern constellations.
He returned to Spain in September, 1500. There two expeditions were
undertaken in the service of Spain; the third and the fourth, in
that of Portugal. In consequence of the long fatigues of his second
voyage, Vespucci was taken ill of the quartan ague. When his health
was re-established, he wrote an account of his voyage to Lorenzo di
Pierfrancesco de' Medici.
On 14 May, 1501, he sailed from Lisbon to Cape Verde, and thence
westward, until, on 1 January, 1502, he came to a gulf at 13° S., to
which he gave the name of Bahia de Todos Santos, and upon the shores
of which the city of Bahia now stands. From there he coasted along
South America, as far as the Plata. On his return, he discovered the
island of South Georgia, at 54° S., and 1200 miles east of Tierra
del Fuego. He arrived at Lisbon on 7 September, 1502. On his fourth
voyage, he sailed with Gonzal Coelho from Lisbon, on 10 June, 1503,
touched land at the Cape Verde Islands, and bent his course towards
the Bay of All Saints. At Cape Frio, having found great quantities
of brazil-wood, he established an agency, exactly on the Tropic of
Capricorn. Thereafter, he coasted along the continent, nearly to the
Rio de la Plata, and then returned to Lisbon, where he arrived on 18
June, 1504. Vespucci made a fifth voyage with Juan de la Cosa,
between May and December, 1505; they visited the Gulf of Darien, and
sailed 200 miles up the Atrato River. During that voyage, they
collected gold and pearls, and received information of there being a
great abundance of those substances in that region. This voyage was
repeated by the two navigators in 1507. Of these two expeditions,
however, there is no special account by Vespucci. It should be added
that, in 1506, Vespucci was busy in Spain, fitting out the
expedition of Pinzón,
which was abandoned in March, 1507.
The facts regarding the voyages of Vespucci are accepted as given in
the above narrative by the majority of the authoritative biographers
of that navigator; but the inexactness of the printed texts, the
difficulty of identifying the names of places, used by Vespucci,
with the modern ones, and the error of attributing sincerity to all
assertions contained in official documents, especially in those
relating to legal proceedings, have given rise to enormous confusion
in all that relates to the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, of which the
chief base for future criticism will be the investigation of the
apocryphal codices of the narratives of the voyages of Vespucci,
written at the time when the authentic ones appeared. Vespucci was
certainly held in high esteem in Spain, where he established himself
after his voyages in the service of Portugal. In 1505, by a royal
decree of 14 April of that year, he had received Spanish
naturalization, and a decree of 6 August, 1508, named him piloto
mayor de España, a title corresponding to the modern one of head of
the admiralty, and which was borne by Vespucci until his death.
Amerigo Vespucci married Maria Cerezo, apparently in 1505. The only
precise information concerning her is furnished by the royal decree
of 28 March, 1512, according her a pension, on account of the
satisfaction given by her husband as piloto mayor, which pension was
confirmed by the decree of 16 November, 1523. On the other hand, a
decree of 26 December, 1524, grants the remainder of her pension to
her sister Catalina Cerezo; which proves that Maria died between the
two latter dates, and that she left no children. With Amerigo
Vespucci, however, was the son of his brother Antonio, Giovanni, who
was born on 6 March, 1486, and who was named piloto mayor in 1512,
upon the death of his predecessor and uncle, Amerigo. For
information concerning him, see Harrisse, "The Discovery of North
America" (1892), 744-5.
It is impossible to determine, here, the place of Amerigo Vespucci
in the history of the discovery of the New World, in relation to
those of Christopher Columbus, of Sebastian Cabot, and of the
brothers Pinzón. First it is necessary to distinguish between the
geographical, and the social, discovery of America. The former is
due to the Icelanders, who established, on the eastern coast of
Greenland, a colony that was maintained from the tenth to the
fifteenth century, of the history of which a very good compendium is
given by Fischer in "The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America"
(London, 1902); in connection with this work there should be
consulted the collection of documents concerning the relations of
the Church of Rome with Greenland during these centuries, published
by order of Leo XIII.
The discovery of America was due to the failure of the crusade
against the Turks which was attempted by Pius II, and the success of
which was frustrated by the rivalry and corruption of the states of
Europe at that time. Europe then felt the necessity of going to the
East by another way, of seeking the East by way of the West, a motto
that became the flag of the navigators of that age. Paolo
Toscanelli, whose sincerity of religious sentiment was not less than
his great merit of scientific attainment (see the present writer's
work on Toscanelli, I, 1894, in the "Raccolta Colombiana", part V),
foresaw, before Portugal foresaw it, that the time had come for that
country to take the place of Italy as the intermediary of the
commerce between Europe and Asia, and therefore, as the
starting-point of navigators and adventurers, seduced by the desire
of being the executors of the great emprise. Columbus was the first
to reach land to the west--one of the islands of the Bahamas--on 12
October, 1492, convinced that he had reached one of the islands of
eastern Asia. He was followed by Vespucci, Cabot, and many others,
each proposing to himself to reach the land of spices, that is,
India.
We may not, here, enter into the very intricate question of which,
of the three navigators named, was the first to tread the mainland
of the New World. For that, it would be necessary to have before us
the correct texts of all the fundamental documents concerning those
navigators. As regards Columbus, the "Raccolta Colombiana",
published by the Italian Government on the occasion of the fourth
centenary of the discovery of America, is an exhaustive document.
Very important, for all the history of the discovery of America, are
the collection of Navarrete, the books and documents published by
Harrisse, the Duchess of Alba, and many others. But as regards
Vespucci, there are, at Florence, the apocryphal synchronous copies
of all the accounts of his voyages, except the text that was used
for the publication of the "Mundus novus", of which accounts, as
will be seen further on, a correct edition is lacking.
The first editions of the documents relating to the voyages of
Vespucci may be classified as follows:
A. Parisian text.-- A. "Mundus novus" (third voyage), 1st ed., 1503
or 1504. B. Florentine texts - Ba. Letter of the four voyages in the
years 1497-98, 1499-1500, 1501-2, 1503-4; 1st ed., 1507; Bb. Letter
published by Baldini in 1745, relating to the second voyage; Bc.
Letter published by Bartolozzi in 1789, relating to the third
voyage; Bd. Letter published by Baldelli Boni in 1827, relating to
the third voyage. C. Venetian texts:- Ca. Letter of Girolamo
Vianello to the Signoria of Venice, dated 23 December, 1506,
relating to a fifth voyage, published for the first time by
Humboldt, in 1839. Cb. Letter of Francesco Corner to the Signoria of
Venice, dated 19 June, 1508, relating to a sixth voyage, published
for the first time by Harrisee, in 1892.
The principal question turns, at once, upon the authenticity of the
voyage and upon that of the publications A, Ba, Bb, Bc, Bd, Ca, and
Cb. In general, a very erroneous confusion is made between two
points: nearly every one admits the authenticity of the publications
A and Ba, but many reject the authenticity of the first voyage, made
by Vespucci in the years 1497 and 1498, and described in the
publication Ba. Some, as Varuhagen and others, deny the authenticity
of the texts Bb, Bc, and Bd, while others hold the contrary opinion
with regard to one or another, or to all three, of these texts.
Nearly all regard as inadmissible the fifth and the sixth voyages,
narrated in the texts Ca and Cb.
For the various editions of the "Mundus novus", the publication of
Sarnow and of Trubenbach is exhaustive, but there is no critical
edition of any of the other texts, which were printed with many
errors; while, as has been said, the apocryphal, though
contemporary, texts of all of them are preserved at Florence. The
present writer proposed the preparation of a critical edition of
this kind, and the proposition was approved by three National
Geographical Congresses of Italy, held at Florence (1898), at Milan
(1901), and at Naples (1904), respectively, and by the International
Congress of Americanists, held at Stuttgart, in August, 1904.
Recently, a commission has been created at Florence, for the
execution of that purpose, under the presidency of the Marchese
Filippo Corsini, president of the Society of Geographical and
Colonial Study resident at Florence; of this commission, Professor
Attilo Mori, of the Military Geographical Institute, and the writer
of this article are members. Until the publication in question
appears, it will be useless to discuss the genuineness of the
voyages of Vespucci, basing such discussion upon the incorrect texts
that are now available--exception being made of the "Mundus novus",
cited above. Those seeking further details in regard to these
codices may consult Harrisse, "Biblioteca americana vetustissima"
(1868), and "Additions" (1872). All the works of that author,
whether bibliographical or historical, are the basis for any work on
the discovery of America.
It is well known today that Vespucci was in no way responsible for
the fact that his name, and not that of Columbus, was given to the
new World, and therefore, that he certainly does not deserve the
charge of theft that has been made against him by many; among them,
the famous American publicist, Emerson, who was led into error by
partisan writers. On the other hand, the affectionate correspondence
between the two great navigators would suffice to disprove all
unworthy accusations. The charge received some support form the
efforts of a considerable portion of the clergy, throughout the
world, to obtain the canonization of Columbus, which, however, was
unsuccessful, when the merits of the case were examined, by order of
Leo XIII, on the occasion of the fourth centenary of the discovery
of America. At that time, the general outcry against Amerigo
Vespucci was so great that the famous American statesman Blaine,
upon the occasion of the exposition at Chicago, published a book
under the title of "Columbus and Columbia," in order that it might
not be contaminated by the unholy name of Vespucci.
It may be remarked that, at the time of the discovery of America, as
is now clearly proven, the narratives of the voyages of Vespucci
were more widely disseminated, by far, than were those of the
voyages of Columbus, and that Florence was the chief centre for the
diffusion of news on the discovery of the New World. To the close
relations that existed between Gianfrancesco Pico, Duke della
Mirandola, and Florence, and between Gian Francesco and the learned
German, Matthew Ringmann, who, in 1504, edited one of the most
important editions of the "Mundus novus", under the title of "De ora
antartica per regem Portugalliae pridem inventa", and to the close
relations between Ringmann and the geographer Martin Waldseemuller
(Hylacomilus), is due the fact that when, in 1507, Waldseemuller
published the celebrated work "Cosmographiae introductio", at
Saint-Dié, in Lorraine, he gave the name of America to the New
World, arguing that, since the three continents then known, Europe,
Asia, and Africa, had names of women, it was proper to give the
newly-discovered continent also the name of a woman, taking it from
the baptismal name of the discoverer of the new continent, Vespucci.
Many attempts were made to name the New World Columbia, as justice
seemed to demand, but all such efforts failed. The writer has tried
to clear up these points and to prove the honesty of Vespucci; and
his efforts have received the approbation of the Numismatic and
Archaeological Society of New York; for, the latter, having resolved
to strike, each year, a medal commemorative of some benefactor of
America, decided that the first of these medals should be coined in
honor of Amerigo Vespucci, and requested the writer to proposed the
best portrait of the great navigator for reproduction. The Society
accepted the writer's suggestion and gave the preference to the
portrait of the Galleria degli Uffizi of Florence, which is
generally considered to be the most genuine, but thought that they
should take into account the great map of Waldseemuller, of 1507, on
which there is a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci; and therefore, the
medal was struck with the two portraits, one on either side.
Source: Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
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