VESPUCCI
385
VESPUCCI
should have sent, to Duke Rene a copy, in Latin, of
the letter of the four voyages, written m ItaUan to the
gondolficre pcrpetuo Piero Soderini, and why one of
the earliest editions of V'espucci's voyages (the third)
should ha\e been made at Paris in 1504. The offices
that Vespucci laeld from the younger branch of the
house of Medici explain why the former, between
November of 1491 and Februan.- of 1492, joined, at
Seville, Giannetto di Lorenzo Berardo Berardi, chief
of a house, established at that city, which had close
financial relations with the younger branch of the
Medici, that is, with Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco and his
son. Through his intelligence, he became one of the
chief agents of that firm, which, later, had a leading
[lart m fitting out the oceanic expeditions that led to
the discover,' of the New World.
The successful voyages of Christopher Columbus increased ^'espucci'e desire to take a part in the gen- eral European movement to seek a western passage to the Indies. Having obtained three ships from
he wrote an account of his voy.age to Lorenzo di Pier-
francesco do' Medici.
On 14 May, 1.501, he sailed from Lisbon to Cape Verde, and thence westward, until, on 1 January, 1502, he came to a gulf at 13° S., to which he gave the name of Bahia de Todos Santos, and upon the shores of which the city of Bahia now stands. From there he coasted along South America, as far as the Plata. On his return, he discovered the island of South Georgia, at 54° S., and 1200 miles east of Tierra del Fuego. He arrived at Lisbon on 7 September, 1502. On his fourth voj'age, he sailed with Gonzal Coelho from Lisbon, on 10 June, 1503, touched land at the Cape Verde Islands, and bent his course towards the Bay of All Saints. At Cape Frio, having found great quantities of brazil-wood, he estabUshed an agencj-, exactly on the Tropic of Capricorn. Thereafter, he coasted along the continent, nearly to the Rio de la Plata, and then returned to Lisbon, where he arrived on IS June, 1504. Vespucci made a fifth voyage
Ferdinand, Kng of Castille, Vespucci was able to
undertake his first voyage. Accordingly, he set sail
from Cadiz on 10 May, 1497, sailing towards the For-
tunate Islands, and then laying his course towai'ds
the west. After twenty-seven or thirty-seven days,
on 6 or 10 April, he touched the mainland (Guiana or
Brazil?), and was well received by the inhabitants.
In this first voyage he maj' have entered the Gulf of
Mexico and coasted along a great portion of the
L'nited States, as far as the Gulf of St. LawTence.
Then he returned to Spain, and landed at Cadiz on
15 October, 149S. There is no other relation of this
first voyage than that contained in the first letter of
Amerigo Vespucci concerning the islands newly found
in his four voyagas, addre.ssed to Piero Soderini, Gon-
faloniere of Florence.
On 16 May, 1499, Vespucci sailed from Cadiz on his second voyage, with Alonzo de Ojeda and Juan de la Cosa. He directed his course to Cape Verde, crossed the Equator, and saw land, on the coast of Brazil, at 4° or 5° S., possibly near Aracati. From there, he coasted along the Guianas and the conti- nent, from the Gulf of Paria to Maracaibo .and Cape de la Vela; he discovered Cape >St. Augustine and the River Amazon, and made notable obser\-ations of the se.i currents, of the Southern Cross and other southern constellation.s. He returned to Spain in September, 1500. These Iw.t expeditions were undertaken in the service of .'^pain; the third and the fourth, in that of Portugal. In con.sequence of the long fatigues of his second voyage, \'espucci w.as taken ill of the quartan ague, \\lieu his health was re-established, XV.— 25
Parmigianino.
Nazionale, Naples
witk Juan de la Cosa, between May and December, 1505; they visited the Gulf of Darien, and sailed 200 miles up the Atrato River. During that voyage, they collected gold and pearls, and received informa- tion of there being a great abundance of those sub- stances in that region. This voyage was repeated by the two navigators in 1507. Of these two ex- peditions, however, there is no special account by Vespucci. It should be added that, in 150(3, Ves- pucci was busy in Spain, fitting out the expedi- tion of Pinz6n, which was abandoned in March, 1507.
The facts regarding the voyages of Vespucci are accepted as given in the above n,arrative by the ma- jority of the authoritative biographers of that navi- gator; but the incxactne-ss of the printed texts, the difficulty of identifying the names of places, used by Vespucci, with the modern ones, and the error of attributing sinccritj' to all assertions contained in official documents, especially in those relating to legal proceedings, have given rise to enormous con- fusion in all that relates to the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci, of which the chief b.ase for future criticism will be the investigation of the apocryphal codices of the narratives of the voyages of Vespucci, written at the time when the authentic ones appeared. Ves- pucci was certainly held in high esteem in Spain, where he established himself after his voyages in the service of Portugal. In 1.505, by a royal decree of 14 .\pril of that year, he had received .Spanish nat- uralization, and a decree of 6 Augu.st, 1.50.S, named him pilolo mayor de Espana, a title corresponding
