VESPUCCI, AMERIGO

born 1454, Florence died 1512, Seville Amerigo Vespucci, portrait by an unknown artist; in the Uffizi Gallery, Florence. merchant and explorer-navigator who took part in early voyages to the New World (14991500, 150102) and occupied the influential post of piloto mayor (master navigator) in Seville (150812). The name for the Americas is derived from his given name. Additional reading Biographies include Frederick J. Pohl, Amerigo Vespucci, Pilot Major (1944, reissued 1979); and Germn Arciniegas, Amerigo and the New World: The Life and Times of Amerigo Vespucci (1955, reprinted 1978). Luciano Formisano (ed.), Letters from a New World: Amerigo Vespucci's Discovery of America, trans. by David Jacobson (1992), is the first English-language compilation of Vespucci's letters and other pertinent documents.