Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci
Amerigo Vespucci (1454–1512) was a Florentine merchant and navigator whose voyages along the coast of South America led him to describe it as a "New World," and whose name was given to the Americas. Educated in Florence and employed by the Medici banking house, he moved to Seville in the early 1490s, where he helped supply ships for Atlantic voyages, including those of Christopher Columbus. His turning point came at sea: around 1499 he sailed with a Spanish expedition to the northern coast of South America, and in 1501–1502, sailing for Portugal, he followed the Brazilian coast far to the south. Letters published under his name argued that these lands were a new continent rather than part of Asia. In 1507 the mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller named the new lands "America" in his honor. Vespucci later served Spain as its chief pilot, training navigators until his death in 1512.
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Voyages of the Age of Discovery
Marco Polo's account of his years in China later inspired European navigators, among them Christopher Columbus, who crossed the Atlantic in 1492. Amerigo Vespucci, whose name the Americas came to bear, described the lands as a New World. Vasco da Gama opened the sea route to India, Ferdinand Magellan led the first expedition to sail around the globe, and Sir Francis Drake completed the second circumnavigation.
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