Amerigo Vespucci

by Frederick Albion Ober

Amerigo Vespucci ( 9 March 1451 - 22 February 1512) was an Italian merchant, explorer, and navigator from the Republic of Florence, from whose name the term "America" is derived. He became a Castilian citizen in 1505. Between 1497 and 1504, Vespucci participated in at least two voyages of the Age of Discovery, first on behalf of Spain (1499-1500) and then for Portugal (1501-1502). In 1503 and 1505, two booklets were published under his name, containing colourful descriptions of these explorations and other alleged voyages.

Genres: History, Biography

118 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Frederick Albion Ober was an American naturalist and writer.

Reviews

[Robert Simms]

I remember that as a child of the late 1950s, we were told that America was named for Amerigo Vespucci, but little else was mentioned of him. I recently saw an American TV personality go on a rant about how America was named for "some Italian white guy". I wanted to get a reasonably unbiased history of Vespucci, so I read this biography - written in 1907. For anyone interested in history, this book is a must read.

[Ron]

Pretty choppy, but I was curious about the history.

[Me]

It was a pretty good book because I had to do research.