1454-1512

Italian Merchant and Geographer

Amerigo Vespucci was one of the most important personalities of the European Age of Exploration. His vast knowledge of geography would set the stage for the European colonization of the Western hemisphere.

Amerigo Vespucci. (Library of Congress. Reproduced with permission.)

Amerigo Vespucci was a child of the Renaissance and the Scientific Revolution. Nicholas Copernicus (1473-1543) would move the Earth from the center of creation to the position of third satellite orbiting the sun. Galileo (1564-1642) and his telescope proved the heliocentric theory, and a questioning attitude would define this early modern period. The development of the scientific method created a process through which humankind could decipher God's "Book of Nature."

Italy was at the center of this knowledge explosion. By the late fourteenth century, certain Italian city-states had seized control of the flow of spice, perfumes, and silk from the East...