Who was Amerigo Vespucci, and what did he do?
He was an Italian merchant, born in 1454 in Florence and employed by the Medicis. They sent him to look after their ship-outfitting business, which operated out of Seville, about the time Columbus made his first voyage. In fact, the business had a part in outfitting Columbus’s third voyage. Vespucci finally outfitted his own voyage in quest of the passage to the Indian subcontinent that had eluded Columbus. He sailed in 1499 — seven years after Columbus first landed in the West Indies. Vespucci made two voyages between 1499 and 1502 and possibly a third one in 1503. During his first voyage he explored the northern coast of South America to well beyond the mouth of the Amazon. He gave names like “Gulf of the Ganges,” and other Asian place-names he knew about, to the things he saw. He also made significant improvements in navigational techniques. During this trip he predicted the earth’s circumference to within 50 miles. But the big breakthrough came on Vespucci’s second trip. And that
