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Forgotten Voyager: The Story of Amerigo Vespucci

Ann Fitzpatrick Alper

Non-Fiction (Series)

Ages 9 to 12

Lerner Publishing, 1991, 0-87614-442-3

  Most of us have heard of Christopher Columbus but many of us do not know anything about one of Columbus’s contemporaries, Amerigo Vespucci. For many years it was suggested that Vespucci’s achievements were fictional and that he did not in fact go to the places that he said he went to. Today historians are finally beginning to give this very special man the credit that he deserves.

  Born in Florence and the third son of a notary, Amerigo was given opportunities that were not usually afforded to third sons. He was given a good education and got good jobs working for the Medici family. One of his employers sent him to Seville in Spain on a business related errand. A few years later the same employer sent Amerigo to Seville again and this time Amerigo stayed there to work with a friend, Gianetto Berardi. Christopher Columbus was in and out of Berardi’s house and it is likely that Amerigo got to know the man well and became intimately familiar with all the details of Columbus’ upcoming journey west. 

  When Columbus came back to Spain after finding “the coast of China” he quickly began to make preparations for his return voyage and he asked Amerigo and Berardi to outfit the seventeen ships that would be going back to Hispaniola. With great dedication the friends took care of matters for Columbus and in a surprisingly short period of time Columbus was off again. Unfortunately ships from the new colony brought back the news that Columbus was doing a terrible job managing things in Hispaniola. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella decided to let other explorers go to the new lands. Amerigo agreed to join an expedition to see how things stood for himself. Thus the King and Queen would get an independent opinion about the new colony and Columbus’s conduct there.

  Amerigo ended up doing much more than this. He discovered how to figure out longitude with great accuracy using an almanac, his quadrant, the position of the stars, and mathematical equations. And he traveled down the coast of what is now called South America for a good distance. The King and Queen of Spain were so pleased with his successes that they asked him to take another voyage on their behalf. However Amerigo ended up taking the trip for the King Manuel of Portugal instead.

  On this voyage Amerigo figured out that the Earth’s circumference was a lot bigger than had been previously suggested and he realized that the new lands that had been discovered could not possibly be a part of Asia. Instead they were a whole new continent which lay to the east of Marco Polo’s Indies. Amerigo was the first person to suggest this and his discovery was a profound one.

  Today we know of course that Amerigo was quite right. There is a continent between Europe and Asia. His name was given to the new continent by a mapmaker who felt that it would be “fitting” to name this new land after Amerigo. Contrary to belief Amerigo did not give the continent his own name and the name did not really become well known until after Amerigo was long gone.

  This book serves as an excellent tribute to an explorer who would not accept that something was fact until he had proved it to himself in a satisfactory manner. He was a scientist, a mapmaker, and an excellent organizer, and he managed to do what he loved without alienating himself from the world, the way Columbus did.

  This is one of the titles in the “Trailblazers” series.

 

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