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Sep 8, 2010
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Published on Dec 4, 2009
Waldseemuller's Mistake Meant Glory For Vespucci We usually talk about Americans in this column, but sometimes a foreigner's accomplishments are so important that it merits an exception. Mr. Vespucci was an explorer, navigator and mapmaker from Florence, Italy. His first name can be spelled two different ways, so we'll just stick with his last name for now. Martin Waldseemuller, on the other hand, was a German mapmaker. Sometimes an explorer has a land named after him. That's a fair reward for being the one who discovers the new land, but that isn't the case here. By the way, explorers aren't the only ones who have their works named after them, as inventors sometimes have their inventions named after them, although they may regret it later (paging Dr. Joseph Guillotine). Today's hero had not one, but two, lands named after him despite the fact that he did not discover either land. How did this happen, and who was Vespucci? He was born in 1451, which was 41 years before Christopher Columbus discovered America. In fact, America wasn't even called America until 1507, and there's more to this story than you learned in your History classes. Sailing for Spain and Portugal, Vespucci made between two and four voyages to Central and South America from 1497 to 1504. The reason why we don't know the exact number of voyages is that records were not kept as diligently back then as they are today. It was the German mapmaker Martin Waldseemuller who credited Vespucci with the discovery of two lands when in 1507 he read a letter that was reportedly written by Vespucci that told of Vespucci's travels to the New World. Waldseemuller might have lost something in the translation of that letter, which was written in Latin, and he created his famous map based in part of what he read in Vespucci's letter. Vespucci's full name was Amerigo Vespucci, and he is believed to be the person for whom the Americas were named. But was that his birth name? Waldseemuller was the mapmaker who named North and South America after Amerigo Vespucci. He was also the first one to draw North and South America separate from Asia. In 1513, he changed the names on his map from North and South America to "Terra Incognita." The reason for this is one of several unclear events that occurred in the mapping and naming of North and South America. For example, Waldseemuller was able to draw the Pacific Ocean six years before a European explorer would discover it. He also correctly drew South America to within 70 miles of its actual size. "Terra Incognita," by the way, translates into "unknown land." There were 1,000 copies of Waldseemuller's map published, and only one is known to exist today. It was found in a German castle in 1901 and then sold to the Library of Congress. One thing's for certain, though: The two Americas are named after Amerigo Vespucci. Or were they named after British naturalist Richard Amerike, who reportedly financed John Cabot's voyage to Newfoundland in 1497? Or could they be named after the gold district in Nicaragua that was known as Amerrique? Both Vespucci and Columbus visited this area. Just as explorers tend to name the lands they discover after themselves, it was once reported that Vespucci changed his name from "Alberigo" to "Amerrigo" - to possibly claim the new land in Nicaragua for himself. Nobody knows for sure, but it kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it? After all, history wasn't always recorded as it was being made. The way that history has recorded it, though, is that the two Americas were named after Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci. Paul Niemann's column is syndicated in more than 80 newspapers. He can be reached at niemann7@aol.com c Paul Niemann 2009 Comments:
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