Amerigo Vespucci Timeline

Letter from Seville (1500) describes a voyage made in 1499–1500 while in the service of Spain. It was not published until centuries later, first appearing in 1745 through Angelo Maria Bandini.

Image source: New World

Letter from Cape Verde (1501) was written at the outset of a voyage undertaken for Portugal in 1501–1502. It was first published much later by Count Baldelli Boni in 1807.

Letter from Lisbon (1502) is essentially a continuation of the letter started in Cape Verde, describing the remainder of the voyage made on behalf of Portugal. It was first published by Francesco Bartolozzi in 1789.

The Ridolfi Fragment (1502) is part of a letter attributed to Vespucci but some of its assertions remain controversial. It was only first published in 1937 by Roberto Ridolfi.

Mundus Novus (1503) was a letter written to Vespucci's former schoolmate and patron, Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici. Originally published in Latin, it described his voyage to Brazil in 1501–1502 under the Portuguese flag. By 1550, at least 50 editions had been issued, making it a bestseller across Europe.

In a 1504 letter to Piero Soderini, Vespucci described the New World as a continuous mainland. The letter, addressed to the Florentine official and dated 1504, was published the following year and purports to describe four voyages including the disputed 1497 one.

Image source: Amerigo Vespucci

Letter to Soderini (1505) was written in Italian and published in Florence around 1505, ostensibly intended for Piero di Tommaso Soderini, leader of the Florentine Republic. It vividly recounted Vespucci's alleged voyages to the New World.

In 1505, Vespucci was made a subject of Castile by royal decree, formalizing his service to the Spanish crown. By early 1505 he was back in Seville, where he would remain until his death.

In March 1508, Vespucci was named chief pilot for the Casa de Contratación or House of Commerce, which served as a central trading house for Spain's overseas possessions. From 1505 until his death in 1512, he remained in service to the Spanish crown.

Image source: Casa de Contratación

The Soderini letter came to the attention of humanist scholars studying geography in Saint-Dié, a small town in the Duchy of Lorraine. In 1506, they obtained a French translation of the letter as well as a Portuguese maritime map detailing the coasts of lands recently discovered in the western Atlantic.

In April 1507, Ringmann and Waldseemüller published their Introduction to Cosmography with an accompanying world map, applying the Latinized form 'America' to the New World in recognition of Vespucci's accomplishments — the origin of the name of the Americas.

Image source: Martin Waldseemüller

In 1513 Waldseemüller published a new map with the New World labelled 'Terra Incognita' instead of 'America', and the accompanying text names Columbus as discoverer, walking back his earlier attribution.

In 1538, Gerardus Mercator used America to name both the North and South continents on his influential map, cementing the name that honors Vespucci for the entire New World.

Image source: Gerardus Mercator

In 1515, Sebastian Cabot became one of the first to question Vespucci's accomplishments and express doubts about his claimed 1497 voyage, beginning centuries of controversy over his legacy.

Image source: Sebastian Cabot (explorer)

By 1600, most regarded Vespucci as an impostor not worthy of his honours and fame, largely because of doubts about the authenticity of the claimed 1497 first voyage.

In 1839, Alexander von Humboldt, after careful consideration, asserted that the 1497 voyage was impossible but accepted the two Portuguese-sponsored voyages as genuine, bringing more rigorous scholarship to the controversy.

Image source: Alexander von Humboldt

Vespucci's reputation was perhaps at its lowest in 1856 when Ralph Waldo Emerson called him a 'thief' and 'pickle dealer' from Seville who managed to get 'half the world baptized with his dishonest name.'

Image source: Ralph Waldo Emerson

Opinions began to shift somewhat after 1857 when Brazilian historian Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen wrote that everything in the Soderini letter was true, offering a defense of Vespucci's account.

Image source: Francisco Adolfo de Varnhagen, Viscount of Porto Seguro

After years of controversy, the authenticity of the three complete letters was convincingly demonstrated by Alberto Magnaghi in 1924. His exhaustive review denied Vespucci's authorship of Mundus Novus and the Letter to Soderini, the only two texts published during his lifetime, attributing them instead to unknown authors with access to his private writings.

Image source: Territorialist School

Scholars continued debating Vespucci's voyages: Pohl (1944) was rejected by Germán Arciniegas (1955), who posited all four voyages were truthful; Samuel Morison (1974) flatly rejected the first voyage; Luciano Formisiano (1992) declared all four genuine; and Felipe Fernández-Armesto (2007) called the authenticity question 'inconclusive,' hypothesizing the first voyage was probably another version of the second.