AMERIGO VESPUCCI: THE MAN AND THE MYTH

Compiled and edited by John de Bry

Five hundred sixty-six years after his birth Amerigo Vespucci, the man whose name
was used to name the New World America, remains a mystery and a puzzle to the
modern historian. Although the great geographer Martin Waldseemüller first proposed
that Vespucci’s name be given to the south part of the New World, i.e. South America,
the Florentine sailor has been portrayed by some as a great explorer and navigator, and
by others as a usurper and a fake. Facts about his life and work are few and often
contradictory.

Vespucci’s four voyages of discovery were published for the first time together in an
appendix to a Latin work on cosmography by Martin Waldseemüller (alias Martinus
Hylacomylus) in 1507, entitled Cosmographiae introductio, which also contained the first
edition of the first and fourth voyages. It is that work which is quoted above and under
the name of Hylacomylus. The next collection of the four voyages is in French and was
published in Paris by Galliot de Pré in 1516 under the title Le nouveau monde et
navigacions faicte par Emeric de Vespuce florentin. There is another collection of the
voyages in Italian, and this particular set seems to have been printed in Florence around
1516 or shortly thereafter. The latter is called the Grenville Codex, named after its former
owner, Thomas Grenville. This Italian collection was republished by Bandini and
Canovai from a printed copy which had on the title page the name Baccio Valori, one of
the first librarians of the Laurentian Library of Florence. The Bandini text is called
Valori-Bandini and Canovai’s text is called Viaggi.

Albericus (Madrigano, Ruchamer, Jehan Lambert), Emeric (du Redouer), Alberico or

Americo (Gomara), Morigo (Hojeda), Amerrigo (Muñoz), Americus (Peter Martyr),
Almerigo Fiorentino (Vianello), de Espuche, Vezpuche, Despuchi, Vespuccio (Ramusio),
Vespuchy (Christopher Columbus), usually called Americus Vespuccius, the third son of a
public notary of patrician origin, was born on 9 March 1451, some say in Florence, some
say in Venice (Herrera), while others claim that Vespucci was born in 1454 in a hospital
on Via Borgognissanti in Florence. He was educated by his uncle, a learned friar, along
with Pietro Soderini (Guliano Ricci) who in 1502 became Gonfalonier of Florence (Chief
Magistrate u 1502-1512), and to whom the duplicate account of the third voyage was
addressed.

We know nothing of his activities from the time he was a student until the year 1490
when he left Italy and presumably traveled to Spain, arriving there in early 1493
(Humboldt). According to the German naturalist and historian Alexandre von Humboldt
(Examen Critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent, Vol. IV, p. 45, Paris
1836-1839), he did returned to Spain in 1493, according to some as an agent of Lorenzo

1
di Pierfrancesco de Medici, cousin of the great Lorenzo (Bartolozzi), or simply as a clerk
(Navarrete) in leading commercial house of his countryman Juanoto Berardi, in Seville.
Sebastian Münster, in his Coemographia Universalis published in Basle in 1550,
erroneously asserts that Vespucci joined the first expedition of Columbus in 1492, while
Canovai states that he was sent as an apprentice by Ferdinand on the second voyage in
1493. After the death of Juanoto Berardi in December 1495, Vespucci was promoted to
the position of factor or partner, and as such was charged with outfitting the vessels of
Columbus’s third voyage, receiving ten thousand maravedis on January 12 th, 1496, for
his work. From April 1497 to May 1498 Vespucci was constantly traveling from Seville
to Sanlúcar de Barrameda. During that period he married María Cerezo, but the exact
date and place of his wedding remain unknown. She survived him (Muñoz).

Vespucci left Spain for Portugal in 1501, both secretly and on his own (Bandini), or
overtly at the instigation of King Emmanuel, and resided in Lisbon, or on Portuguese
vessels, until 1505, returning to Spain at the request of King Ferdinand. He repaired to
the Spanish court armed with a letter of introduction from Columbus and his son
Diego. Falling into the grace of the Catholic Sovereign, he was made a Spanish subject
on April 24th, 1505. From May 1505 until August 1506, Vespucci was at Palos and
Moguer, preparing Vincente Yañez Pinzón’s expedition. On the 23rd of August 1506, he
was written to by order of Philip I, to ascertain what was required for an expedition in
terms of groceries.

In 1506, Vespucci was associated with Juan de la Cosa for a new expedition in which he
was to captain the caravel La Medina, but the ship never sailed, owing to the death of
Philip I. He was again summoned to the court on November 26th, 1507 and appointed
Chief Pilot of the Indies before March 22nd, 1508. This appointment was made official
with the payment of a large sum in maravedis on March 22nd, 1508, although his
nomination is dated August 6th, 1508. Vespucci died in Seville on February 22nd, 1512, or
at Terceira, one of the Azore islands, in 1516 (G. López de Pintho, Bandini, Meusel), or in
1518 (Negri), poor but highly respected by all, never dreaming that he had discovered a
new continent and persuaded, like Columbus, that at best he only visited the western
coast of Japan. Vespucci, however, would not live to enjoy the glory which he so
vehemently sought. Waldseemüller apparently had second thoughts about giving the
Florentine explorer’s name to the southern part of the New World, and it would be
many more years before the name America would figure on maps. It was the
cosmographer and map maker Gerardus Marcator who, in 1538, first published in his
Orbis Imago a map of the New World which clearly separated the North American
continent from Asia, and gave the name America to both the north and south continents.

Four voyages of exploration are ascribed to Vespucci. The first voyage was undertaken
for the King of Spain, probably under Hojeda (Las Casas, Herrera, Charlevoix, Humboldt).

2
It is not clear under what capacity Vespucci traveled on this particular expedition, but it
is widely believed that it was as pilot (Hojeda), while other historians place him as
simple trader (Servetus), or as a merchant well versed in cosmography (Herrera), or as
astronomer of the expedition (Humboldt), or as a passenger interested in the profit
aspect of such an expedition (Tiraboschi), or as having been selected by King Ferdinand
to aid in making discoveries (Valori-Bandini).

Leaving Cádiz on May 20th, 1497 (Waldseemüller, alias Martinus Hylacomylus, Giuntini),
or May 10th, 1497 (Valori-Bandini, Canovai), or May 20th, 1499 (Las Casas, Herrera). He
reached the mainland of South America after a passage of twenty-seven days
(Hylacomylus, Giutini), or thirty-seven days (Valori-Bandini, Canovai), and returned to
Cádiz on October 15th, 1499 (Hylacomylus), or October 15th, 1498 (Canovai), or October
14th, 1498 (Valori-Bandini), bringing two hundred and twenty-two Indian slaves who
were sold upon his arrival in Spain. If Waldseemüller’s dates are correct, then the leader
of that expedition is entitled to the credit of having landed on the shores of the
continent before Columbus (August 1st, 1498), and even previous to the Cabots (June
24th, 1497), but historian Samuel Eliot Morison tells us that John Cabot can only be
credited with an insular landfall in 1497, and that Vespucci’s alleged 1497 landing on
the mainland should be dated 1499.

The second voyage was undertaken for the King of Spain, probably under Vincente
Yañez Pinzón (Humboldt). The expedition sailed from Cádiz one day in May 1489
(Hylacomylus), or on May 16th, 1499 (Valori-Bandini), or May 18th, 1499 (Canovai). Reached
land after nineteen days (Hylacomylus), or forty-four days (Valori-Bandini), or on the
twenty-third day (Canovai), and returned on September 8th of the same year
(Hylacomylus, Valori-Bandini), or June 8th (Canovai).

The third voyage was undertaken for the King of Portugal. The expedition probably
sailed under Cabral (Humboldt) from Lisbon on May 10th, 1501 (Hylacomylus, Valori-
Bandini), or June 10th (Temporal), reaching the New World on August 17th (Hylacomylus,
Valori-Bandini), or May 13th 1501 (Canovai), or June 10th (Temporal), reaching the New
World on August 17th (Hylacomylus, Canovai), or August 1st, 1501 (Valori-Bandini), or
August 7th, 1501, or simply after a voyage of sixty-four days (Bartolozzi), returning to
Lisbon after a voyage of sixteen months in 1502 (Hylacomylus), or September 7th, 1502
(Valori-Bandini, Canovai).

The fourth voyage was also undertaken for the King of Portugal, and the expedition
sailed from Lisbon, probably under Gonçalo Coelho (Humboldt, Southey), on May 10th,
1503 (Hylacomylus, Valori-Bandini, Canovai). The ship Vespucci was on is reported as
having wrecked on August 10th of the same year on the coast of the island of San
Fernando Noronha or Peñedo de San Pedro, or on the imaginary island of Saint

3
Matthews. Vespucci managed to return to Lisbon on June 28th, 1504 (Hylacomylus), or
June 18th, 1504 (Valori-Bandini, Canovai).

The Fleming engravers Théodore de Bry and Johan Théodore de Bry published an
abridged Latin version of the first and second voyages in the Grand Voyages (Americæ
pars decima, qua continentur : I. Duæ navigationes Dn. Americi Vesputii; Oppenheim, 1619),
and the third and fourth voyages in the Petits Voyages (Indiæ orientalis pars undecima qua
continentur : I. Duarum navigationum quas jussus Emanueli, Portugalliæ regis, in Indiam
Orientalem ann. 1501 Dn. Americus Vesputius instituit, historia; Oppenheim, 1619). A
peculiarity of the de Bry’s editions is the interpolation of the word America.

How can we account for these and an infinite number of discrepancies? They are, says
Humboldt, « l’effet du désordre de la rédaction et des gloses ajoutées par d’ignorants ou
zélés commentateurs. »

The second and third voyages alone have been printed separately in the form of
plaquettes, all within the first eight years of the sixteenth century in France and
Germany but only in Latin and German. Besides the account of the third voyage
published in the above-mentioned collection, two others have frequently been
republished. The latter is called First Duplicate. It is by far the most interesting and was
most likely printed before all others, and contains astronomical diagrams. This text can
be found in Ramusio’s Sommario die due navigazioni di Amerigo Vespucci. Ramusio’s
collection also contains an excellent translation of the third and fourth voyages as given
by Hylacomylus. The other letters attributed to Vespucci are all modern publications.
The first is a duplicate account of the second voyage which was first published by
Bandini, from a manuscript in the Riccardiana Library. The second letter gives a
duplicate account of the third voyage and was printed for the first time by Bartolozzi.
The third is a letter addressed to L. P. F. Medici, from Cape Verde, dated June 14th, 1501,
and published from a manuscript in the Riccardiana Library by Count Baldelli.

Vespucci wrote a great deal but is not the author of the accounts of his voyages which
have been transmitted to us, therefore, researchers should use caution in their
interpretation and analysis of Vespucci’s travels.

Although it is clear that a great injustice was done to Columbus by naming the new
world he had discovered after a man of lesser accomplishments and who first traveled
to the New World nearly five years after Columbus had made landfall on the Lucayan
island of Guanahaní, Amerigo Vespucci cannot be forgotten nor be ignored. In the spirit
of scholarship and exploration it is the responsibility of all historians to place Vespucci
in his rightful historical context.

4
The above text was compiled by John de Bry from various sources including Americ Vespuce by
Henry Vignaud, Ernest Leroux Éditeurs, Paris 1917; Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima – A
Description of Works Relating to America Published Between 1492 and 1551, edited by Henry
Harisse, George P. Philes Publisher, New York 1866; The Church Catalogue of Books Relating
to the Discovery and Early History of North and South America, compiled and annotated b by
George Watson Cole (five volumes), Peter Smith Publisher, New York 1951; Découverte de la
Terre, by Jules Verne, J. Hetzel et Compagnie Publisher, Paris 1879; The European Discovery of
America: The Southern Voyages, 1492-1616, by Samuel Eliot Morison (1887-1976), Oxford
University Press 1974.