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Amerigo Vespucci (/ v ɛ ˈ s p uː tʃ i / vesp-OO-chee, [1] Italian: [ameˈriːɡo veˈsputtʃi]; 9 March 1454 – 22 February 1512) was an Italian explorer and navigator from the Republic of Florence for whom "America" is named. Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery between 1497 and 1504, first on behalf of ...
The claim inspired cartographer Martin Waldseemüller to recognize Vespucci's accomplishments in 1507 by applying the Latinized form "America" for the first time to a map showing the New World. Other cartographers followed suit, and by 1538 the tradition of marking the name "America" on maps of the newly discovered continents was secure.
By sailing southwest from the Atlantic Ocean, Vespucci and his crew ended up discovering South America, which he initially thought was connected to Asia. Vespucci wrote the “Letter from Seville” in Seville , Spain after finishing his voyage in order to summarize all his discoveries in South America .
It has been argued that the two prints in the Nova reperta series on America of which one shows Amerigo Vespucci's first encounter with the New World and the four symbolic prints making up the Americae retectio series were aimed at showing the presumed important role played by Florence in the discovery of America as Vespucci was a Florentine.
Historia antipodum oder newe Welt, or History of the New World, by Matthäus Merian the Elder, published in 1631. The Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci is usually credited for coming up with the term "New World" (Mundus Novus) for the Americas in his 1503 letter, giving it its popular cachet, although similar terms had been used and applied before him.
Schöner's 1515 map of America re-drawn on an equirectangular projection and on the same uniform scale as that of Waldseemüller of 1507, so as to be readily comparable. [6] Apparently most map-makers at the time still erroneously believed that the lands discovered by Christopher Columbus, Vespucci, and others formed part of the Indies of Asia
Vespucci suggested that the newly discovered lands (especially what is today South America/Brazil) were not the Indies but a "New World", [10] the Mundus novus, Latin title of a contemporary document based on Vespucci letters to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici, which had become widely popular in Europe. [11]
The New World was no longer clearly shown as a continent separate from Asia, and the name America had been replaced with Terra Incognita (Unknown Land). What caused him to make these changes is not clear, but perhaps he was influenced by contemporary criticism that Vespucci had usurped Columbus's primacy of discovery. [16]