RSS Feed
|
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Book Review Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, professor of history at Tufts University, seeks to explain why the supposed adventures of this obscure Florentine trader caught the imagination and approval of the "sages of St. Die," who were preparing an updated edition of Ptolemy's geography. He asks what made his claims credible and exploits plausible. His background was modest, his father a notary with some family connections to the powerful Medici leaders of Florence. He studied Latin and geography. His oldest brother studied law and became relatively successful. Amerigo turned to trade to make a living, buying and selling gems among other things. He went to Seville, a good place for foreigners to do business in the late Middle Ages. Vespucci began work with a fellow Florentine, Gianotto Berardi, one of the backers of Columbus' 1493 journey. However, profits failed to materialize. When Berardi died suddenly in 1495, he left Vespucci only debts. Amerigo was not any nearer to the fame and honor that he sought. Columbus' failure to findAsia did not dim belief in the possibility of a westward route to India. Ferdinand and Isabella authorized eight more voyages before Columbus made another. Amerigo sailed on the first, in 1499. He left writings, some of which seem to be authentic, some questionable. He tended to write as though he were in charge, when clearly he was not. "It would not be inconsistent with Amerigo's character if he had . . . enhanced his CV and claimed expertise he did not really have." When he got home from his ocean crossing, he began a campaign in favor of a new image, that of a celestial navigator. He claimed to have measured the longitude of Hispaniola, with mathematics and astronomy. Columbus's figures were wildly inaccurate, but at least he made some observations. "The real mystery, it turns out, is not how Vespucci made his calculations, but why people believed him." In any case, he gradually accumulated real competence and a reputation for excellence in the art. He was not troubled by a historian's desire for truth, but believed more in the influence of literature, a tradition that a writer could embellish the truth. "Falsehood was part of the fabric of an explorer's life. Part of the object in writing was to claim rewards. It is difficult now to separate Amerigo's own accounts from the legends and myths that rose up about him.
Fernandez-Armesto states: "He was too unstudious to be a diplomat, too imprudent to be a great merchant, too incompetent to be a navigator, too ignorant to be a cosmographer." Yet he struggled to map the ocean while the state of knowledge was in flux. The story of Amerigo is available at the Mary Willis Library.
|
for larger version       |
|||||||||||||||||||||
