Amerigo Vespucci
Florentine explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer · Historical Figures · Lived 1454 to 1512 · aged 57
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Two continents carry his name, yet historians still argue over what he actually did. Vespucci's widely-read voyage accounts - disputed for authorship and truth - convinced a mapmaker in 1507 to label the New World "America," a choice that stuck long after the man himself was forgotten.
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About this person
Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence on 9 March 1454 and made at least two voyages across the Atlantic between 1497 and 1504, sailing first for Spain and then Portugal. In 1503 and 1505, booklets appeared under his name describing these expeditions in vivid detail; they became bestsellers across Europe, though their authorship and accuracy remain contested. Vespucci claimed that by 1501 he'd grasped what others had missed: Brazil belonged to a fourth continent unknown to Europeans, a "New World" distinct from Asia. That insight reached cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, who in 1507 applied the Latinized "America" to his map of the newfound lands - other mapmakers followed, and the name took hold. Vespucci likely never knew. He became a subject of Castile in 1505, was appointed Spain's piloto mayor in Seville in 1508, and died in that post on 22 February 1512.
Historical Figures born in the 1450s 6
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