Vespucci, AMERIGO

Vespucci, AMERIGO, a naval astronomer, from whom America accidentally received its name, was born at Florence, March 9, 1451, and was at the head of a large Florentine firm in Seville in 1496. He fitted out Columbus' third fleet, and in 1499 himself sailed for the New World with Ojeda, and explored the coast of Venezuela (q.v.). In 1501-4 he was in the service of Emanuel of Portugal, and in 1503 discovered All-Saints' Bay, on the coast of Brazil, afterwards running south as far as Cape Frio. In 1505 he was naturalised in Spain, and from 1508 till his death, February 22, 1512, he was pilot-major of the kingdom. The accident which fastened his name on two continents may be traced to an inaccurate account of his travels published at St Dié in Lorraine in 1507, in which he is represented as having reached the mainland in 1497—before Cabot or Columbus. See his Letters (trans. Hakluyt Soc., 1894), the journal of his Voyage from Lisbon to India (trans. 1894), and a book on him by H. Harrisse (1895).