The world in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was vastly different than it is today. The Crusades had given Europeans a taste for the riches of the East. Travel was perilous. Communications were uncertain, at best. The nations of Europe were all monarchies undergoing the breakdown of the feudal system due to the commercial revolution. Gutenberg's advances in printing during the middle of the fifteenth century meant that ordinary people had begun to learn to read. The Church was in a position where she could, and did, wield both secular and spiritual power. The educated class held an awed reverence for the writings of the ancient Greeks. New ideas, expressed publicly, especially when those ideas stood in stark contrast to the classics, were rare. It is from this world that the exploration and colonization of the Americas was begun. The voyages of Columbus and Vespucci reflect some of the dynamics of their time.

There is perhaps no better example of a man of his time than Columbus. Born the son of a Genoese weaver, Columbus learned to read as an adult, well after he had mastered seamanship. The more that he studied the cosmographers of the ancient world, the writings of Marco Polo, and Pierre d'Ailly's "Imago Mundi", the more that he stood convinced that he could sail West from Spain some three thousand miles and arrive in the East. Upon his return to Spain after his first voyage of 1492, he was given the titles "Admiral of the Ocean Seas" and "Viceroy of the Indies." Columbus was hailed as a hero who had opened the Western trade route to the Indies and discovered new lands for Spain.

Yet, Portugal strongly contested this. Since Portugal owned the Azores, it asserted that it also had dominion over the Atlantic islands found by Columbus. Both Spain and Portugal sought the mediation of Pope Alexander VI. In May 1493, the Pope set a Line of Demarcation which effectively divided the world into areas of Portugese and Spanish ownership. Even with this matter of jurisdiction settled, other questions began to be raised. The wealth of the East, which Columbus had promised to the Spanish Crown, failed to materialize. There was little gold, no spices, no carpets, nothing which they had expected. Instead, there were strange plants, animals, and troublesome natives. So, after 1494, the Spanish Crown authorized others to sail into the area. Yet, during this period, Columbus continued to make voyages to the area which he called the Indies.

Among those others who sailed from Spain was Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine banker who had worked with Giannoto Berardi to outfit Columbus' second voyage in 1493. In 1499, Vespucci sailed under Captain Alonso de Ojeda. Vespucci's maps called the area "Mundus Novus", a new world. In 1501, Vespucci sailed again, probably under G. Coelho. This time, the voyage included a trip along the coast of Brazil. These voyages were not notable in themselves. Columbus had been in the same area in 1498. Yet, Vespucci was the first to realize both that they were seeing a continent and that the continent was not Asia.

Vespucci was quite interested in cosmography. He was skilled as a chart maker. Among Vespucci's notable accomplishments was a calculation of the circumference of the earth which closely approximates the actual distance. Vespucci also developed a fairly accurate system for calculating longitude. He deserves praise for these accomplishments which helped to revolutionize the study of geography. To go against accepted thinking in his day required profound courage. But, that courage was rewarded. In 1508, he was appointed as Pilot-Major of Spain, which gave him the duty of maintaining the official maps and training navigators.

Yet, it was Vespucci's accounts of his voyages which stimulated the European imagination and brought him fame. Vespucci's letter to Pier Soderini was published a year before Peter Martyr's account of Columbus' journeys was available. In 1507, Martin Waldseemuller, having only Vespucci's questionable account before him, proposed that the new world be named for Amerigo. Waldseemuller later changed his mind while making his map of 1513, giving the credit belatedly to Columbus, but by then the name "America" was firmly in use.

The voyages of Columbus and Vespucci were responsible for opening up the Americas to later European exploration and colonization. Neither man would have been remembered without the travels of the other. Those travels and the men behind them form an interesting glimpse at the world from which they came.

Archiniegas, German. Amerigo and the New World: The Life and Times of Amerigo Vespucci. New York; Alfred A. Knopf Publisher, 1955.

Davis, Kenneth C. Don't Know Much About History: Everything You Need to Know About American History (But Never Learned). New York; Crown Publishing, 1990.

Garraty, John A. American History. Chicago; Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers, 1986.

Great Lives From History: Renaissance to 1900 Series. Volumes I and V, Pasadena, California; Salem Press, 1989.

Morison, Samuel Elliot. The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages 1492-1616. New York; Oxford University Press, 1974.

Morris, Richard B. Encyclopedia of American History. New York; Harper and Row, Publishers, 1970.

Parry, J.H. The Discovery of South America. New York; Taplinger Press, 1979.

Vigneras, Louis-AndrŠ. The Discovery of South America and the Andalusian Voyages. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1976.

Zweig, Stefan.( translated by Andrew St. James). Amerigo: A Comedy of Errors in History. New York; Viking Press. 1942.

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