href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@19997@[email protected]#XIV" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">XIV.

ILLUSTRATIONS

AUTHORITIES

ON

Amerigo Vespucci

XVIth Century. Vespucci's letters to Soderini and L. P. F. de' Medici, reproduced in this volume.

XVIIth Century. Herrera, in his Historia General (etc.), Madrid, 1601; "probably followed Las Casas, whose MSS. he had."

XVIIIth Century. Dandini, A. M., Vita e Lettere di Amerigo Vespucci, Florence, 1745.

Canovai, Stanislac, Elogia di Amerigo Vespucci, 1778.

XIXth Century. Navarrete, M. F. de, Noticias Exactas de Americo Vespucio, contained in his Coleccion, Madrid, 1825-1837.

Humboldt, Alexander von, Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Géographie de Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1836-1839.

Lester, C. Edwards, The Life and Voyages of Americus Vespucius, New York, 1846; reprinted, in de luxe edition, New York, 1903.

Varnhagen, F. A., Baron de Porto Seguro, Amerigo Vespucci, son Caractère, ses Écrits (etc.), Lima, 1865; Vienna, 1874. A collection of monographs called by Fiske "the only intelligent modern treatise on the life and voyages of this navigator."

Fiske, John, The Discovery of America, Boston, 1899; contains an exhaustive critical examination of Vespucci's voyages to which the reader should refer for more extended information.

AMERIGO VESPUCCI[1]

I

YOUNG AMERIGO AND HIS FAMILY

1451-1470

Cradled in the valley of the Arno, its noble architecture fitly supplementing its numerous natural charms, lies the Tuscan city of Florence, the birthplace of immortal Dante, the early home of Michael Angelo, the seat of the Florentine Medici, the scene of Savonarola's triumphs and his tragic end. Fame has come to many sons of Florence, as poets, statesmen, sculptors, painters, travellers; but perhaps none has achieved a distinction so unique, apart, and high as the subject of this volume, after whom the continents of the western hemisphere were named.

Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, March 9, 1451, just one hundred and fifty years after Dante was banished from the city in which both first saw the light. The Vespucci family had then resided in that city more than two hundred years, having come from Peretola, a little town adjacent, where the name was highly regarded, as attached to the most respected of the Italian nobility. Following the custom of that nobility, during the period of unrest in Italy, the Vespuccis established themselves in a stately mansion near one of the city gates, which is known as the Porta del Prato. Thus they were within touch of the gay society of Florence, and could enjoy its advantages, while at the same time in a position, in the event of an uprising, to flee to their estates and stronghold in the country.

While the house in which Christopher Columbus was born remains unidentified, and the year of his birth undecided, no such ambiguity attaches to the place and year of Vespucci's nativity. Above the doorway of the mansion which "for centuries before the discovery of America was the dwelling-place of the ancestors of Amerigo Vespucci, and his own birthplace," a marble tablet was placed, in the second decade of the eighteenth century, bearing the following inscription:

"To Americo Vespuccio, a noble Florentine,
Who, by the discovery of America,
Rendered his own and his Country's name illustrious,
[As] the Amplifier of the World.
Upon this ancient mansion of the Vespucci,
Inhabited by so great a man,
The holy fathers of Saint John of God
Have placed this Tablet, sacred to his memory.
a.d. 1719."

At that time, about midway between the date of Vespucci's death and the present, the evidence was strong and continuous as to the residence in that building (which was then used as a hospital) of the family