AMERICA AND AMERICANS an Address by EDWARD DEAN ADAMS To the EXECUTIVE STAFF AND EMPLOYEES of the ALL AMERICA CABLES, INC. AT THEIR ANNUAL DINNER ^December 20, York City "All Red, White and Blue Lines" Copyright, 1920, by Edward Dean Adams Gil 1 ! 89 BROAD STREET, NEW YORK. AMERICA AND AMERICANS The 3^ame and its Significance ON JANUARY 31, 1862, when lecturing in Washington before an audience which included President Lincoln, Ralph Waldo Emerson said: Vk America is another word for Opportunity" WE, of the staff of the All America Cables, who study the business of our organization and strive to promote its interests, appreciate the vision of its founder, James A. Scrymser, when he availed of his opportunity to extend his cable enterprise into the continent we now know to be the original America. In our plans of development by an increase of our territory of usefulness in the southern continent of this hemisphere, we realize that it is indeed a land of opportunity. By acquaintance with the history of its peoples we understand that we have not hitherto fully appreciated that they have a prior claim to the designation of America and Americans which we may have assumed, in part at least, for our own country and people. Attention is therefore invited to some of the circumstances that make the new and popular title, ALL AMERICA CABLES, a fitting one for our Company. Discoveries made within the last 25 years have supplied some pages that were missing in the history of a period more than 400 years ago, and have changed opinions and corrected errors which had prevailed for several centuries, as to how the New World came to be called AMERICA. The great publicity accorded the discoveries of Christopher Columbus by reason of the royal patronage he enjoyed, and the pathetic drama of his later life and death, have given to this discoverer the admiration and sympathy of all people, whereas the voyages of Americus Vespucius, told only in his own brief 3] 4-. 4 42 64 letters, have been doubted by historians as to their number and dates, and yet nearly one-third of the land of this globe had, within a lew years after his voyages and five years before his death, been known and recorded on the maps of most all nations as AMERICA. It is noteworthy that there is no suggestion whatever in any of the letters attributed to Vespucius that the newly discovered world should be given his name or any other name. In the lack of information and the heat of controversy, the prevailing sense of justice would long ago have given the name of Columbus to the New World, had it been practicable to have altered maps, histories, treaties, laws and litera ture into which the name America had become so promptly and thoroughly adopted. Many attempts have been made during the past century to change the name of this country from America to Columbia. The appreciation of what the name Columbus stands for is show r n by the extended use of this name, in several variations, in the designation of 98 towns, counties, cities and rivers in these United States. The name Americus or its derivatives is used i 6 times, while the name Vespucius does not appear anywhere in this country as a title to objects of nature or the results of civilization. It is this sentiment of fairness to Columbus that has prompted writers of many nations, in the absence of definite information to the contrary, to incorporate into their histories and geographies such phrases as we find in our own school books and works of reference, to the effect that Americus Vespucius was a famous Italian navigator who gave his name to the New World. No less eminent a scholar than Ralph Waldo Emerson is responsible for the following statement made in 1856, in his English Traits": "Strange that broad America must wear the name of a thief, Amerigo Vespucci, the pickle dealer of Seville, who went out in 1499, a subaltern with Hojeda, and whose highest naval rank was boatswain s mate in an expedition that never sailed, managed in this lying world to supplant Columbus and baptize half the earth with his own dishonest name." ( Riverside Edition, f$Sj, Vol. 2, Page /./<?.) In 1892, how r ever, John Fiske, the historian, wrote: "No competent scholar anywhere will now be found to dissent from the emphatic statement of M. Harrisse: After diligent study of all the original documents, we feel constrained to say that there, is not a particle of evidence, direct or indirect, impli cating Americus Vespucius in any attempt to foist his name on this continent. " (Bibliotheca Americana fetuaisiima t New York, 1866, Page 65) [4] AMERICUS VESPUCIUS Oil Painting No. ~O2 UFFIZI GALLERY, FLORENCE Where it is claimed to have been in i 568 wv~ It thus becomes of interest to review the historical record of the life of Americus Vespucius and to ascertain the circumstances under which this conti nent, with its three great subdivisions, became known as AMERICA. The navigator generally known as Americus Vespucius, the Latinized name of the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, was born in Florence, on March 9, 1452, of a distinguished family that had then resided in that city for more than i oo years. He was educated for a commercial career, and is said to have made great progress in natural philosophy, astronomy and cosmography, the sciences con nected with navigation, in which the Florentine nobility was specially instructed at that period. He went to Spain in 1490, when he was 39 years old, and is reported to have been at Seville in 1492 when Columbus was preparing for a voyage of exploration, as well as in 1493 w hen Columbus returned. Vespucius at this time was an agent for, or partner with, Lorenzo de Medici (cousin of Lorenzo the Magnificent), and later for Juanoto Berardi, of Florence, to whom was given the contract to prepare the rleet for the second voyage of "Don Cristo bal Colon, Admiral of the Ocean Sea and Viceroy of the Indies." Ancient documents, discovered by a Spanish historian about the year 1800, indicate that Vespucius was engaged in 1497 in preparing the rleet in which Columbus made his third voyage. About this period, it appears from a letter he wrote in j 504 to his friend, Piero Soderini, Gonfalonier of Florence, Ves pucius abandoned mercantile life and prepared himself for world quest by further studies in astronomy and cosmography, in which he became proficient. He appears to have been, at the request of the patron King, the authorized astronomer or chief pilot of the fleets in which his voyages were made. He was recognized and honored as the greatest navigator of his time by the people of Portugal and of Florence. His first voyage was from Cadiz on May 10, 1497, with a Meet of four ships under the command, it is believed, of Vicente Pinzon, with Vespucius as pilot and cosmographer, through the great western ocean, returning October 15, 1498 after exploration of land "within the Torrid Zone, under the parallel which describes the Tropic of Cancer." Historians consider the description given to indicate visits to the islands of Grenada and St. Vincent as now known, and that the voyage was chiefly along the coasts of Honduras, Yucatan, Mexico, and Florida, and possibly as far north as Chesapeake Bay. [6] The second voyage, of three ships in company, was made from June 1499 to September 1500, under the rlag of Castile, and under the command of Alonzo de Hojeda. This voyage extended along the northern coast of South America, from some point on what would now be called .the north coast of Brazil, to the Pearl Coast, and beyond to the Gulf of Maracaibo. The third voyage, from Lisbon, May 1501, was undertaken in the service of King Emanuel of Portugal, and extended southward along the coast of Brazil, discovering the Bay of Rio de Janeiro, and probably the mouth of the River de la Plata, and beyond the latitude of the Cape of Good Mope. This voyage was described at length in a letter to his friend, Piero Soderini, as well as by three letters to his patron, Lorenzo de Medici, in the last of which Vespucius writes: "In days past I gave your excellency a full account of my return, and if 1 remember aright wrote you a description of all those parts of the new world which I had visited in the ships of His Highness, the King of Portugal. Carefully considered, they appear truly to form another world, and therefore we have not without reason called it the NEW WORLD. "Beyond the equinoctial line 1 found countries more fertile and more densely inhabited than I have ever found anywhere else, even in Asia, Africa and Europe. "We sailed from Lisbon, which is nearly forty degrees distant from the equinoctial line, toward the north, to this country which is fifty degrees on the other side of the line. The sum of these degrees is ninety and is the fourth part of the circumference of the globe, according to the reckoning of the ancients, and it is therefore manifest to all that we measured the fourth part of the earth." This letter, during the absence of Vespucius on his fourth voyage, was trans lated from Italian into Latin by Giovanni Giocondo, an eminent scholar of Verona, then living in Paris, and was printed in a condensed form as a little quarto of four pages with the title "Mundus Novus" or "New World," which was widely circulated in Europe. Henry N. Stevens esteems this quarto as "one of the most precious documents in the world." John Fiske states: "This voyage made a great sensation in Europe. It proved the existence of an inhabited continent hitherto unvisited by civilized man in the southern hemisphere. What could it be? If you look at the Mela map you will see how it was regarded. Mela believed there was a great southern continent, which he called the Opposite World. Geographers often called it the Fourth Part, Europe, Asia, and Africa were three parts of the earth, and Mela s southern continent was the fourth. Nobody had ever visited this Fourth Part, and many people doubted its existence. Now Americus was supposed to have proved its existence. It was thought that Columbus and Cabot had reached Asia, and that Americus had coasted along a great southern continent south of Asia. The coast of Brazil was naturally thought to be the coast of the Fourth Part." 7] COSMOGRAPHIAE INTRODVo CTIO/CVMQVIBVS DAM GEOME TRIAE AC ASTRONO MIAEPRINCIPIISAD EAM REMNECESSARHS; Infuperquatuor Amenci fpuci) nauigationcs. Vniuerfalis Cofmograpnij defcriptio tarn in fblidocjp piano /eis ctiam znfertis qu Ptholomep ignotaanuperis repcrta funr. DISTICHON, Cum deus aftra regat/&: terra; climata CarTar Nee tcllus nee eis fydera maius habcnt. ( Translation } INTRODUCTION TO COSMOGRAPHY together with Some Principles of Geometry and Astronomy Necessary to the Purpose Also Four Navigations of Americus Vespucius A Representation of Universal Cosmography Both in Solido and in Piano What to Ptolemy was Unknown and Lately Discovered DISTICH Neither earth nor stars possess anything greater than God and Caesar, as God rules the stars, and Caesar the climes of the earth "We can now begin to understand the intense and wildly absorbing interest with which people read the brief story of the third voyage ot Vespucius, and we can see that in the nature of that interest there was nothing calculated to bring it into com parison with the work of Columbus. The two navigators were not regarded as rivals in doing the same thing, but as men who had done two very different things, and to give credit to the one was by no means equivalent to withholding credit from the other." (Riverside Edition, fSSj, l^ol. 2, Page 129} The significance ot Vespucius letter is in the tact that it describes the discovery ot the entire eastern coast ot the South American continent, without knowing ot its terminus at the Straits, which it has been generally understood were not traversed by their discoverer, Magellan, until 1520. Vespucius returned to Lisbon in i 502, and in May i 503, at the urgent request of the King ot Portugal, started with six ships in company on his fourth voyage, [8] ce multu &T \ Itracj? fit crcdibile feftiug fufecpti fu{# nuiscob id (]> ipia tota ciuitas nos in man difperdi* tos cllc txiftimabat. queadmodu reliqui otnnes de rurba noltra p pfecri nf i nauiu ftulta pr^fumptio* nc cxriter.it. Q_uo fupcrbia modo iufhis omniu cc lor dcus copcnfat . Et ita nuc apud Lifbona ipfam fubfifto ignorans quid dc me fcrcniflimus ipfe rex dcinccps efliccrccogitet.q atanris labonbus meis iam cxnunc rcquicfccre plurimu pcroptarcm/ hue nunciu maicltati veftrc plurimu quoqj intcrdu co mcndans. Amcricus Veiputius in Lifbonsu COSMOGRPHIAI3 Capadoa*am/Pamphi!iam/LiJiam/CiIim/Arm* nias maiore &T minore.Colchidcn/Hircaniam/Hw beriam/AlbaniA:ct prcterea mftas quas fingilatim cnumcrarelongamora cflet.ltadnfla ab cius no mi nis regina. Nuc )?o &: hf partes funt latins luftratar/S: alia quartapars per America Vefputiucvt in fequcnti Jbusaudietur)inuentac(t/qu;i non video cur quis liure vetctab Americo inucntorc fagacis ingcni) vi AmcriV ro Amerigen quali Americi terra / iiuc Amencam ca dicenda:cii &T Europa &f Afia a mulienbus tua for tita fint nomina.Eius fitu & gcntis mores ex bis bi nis Americi nauigationibus quac fequunf liquide intelligidatur. Hunc in modu terra iam quadripartita cogno* fcitret funt tres prime partes cotinentcs /quarta eft infula:caomniquacpimricircudataconfpiciat.Ec licet mare vnu fit queadmodu et ipfa tellus/multis tamen Gnibus diftinclum / 8^ innumcris rcplctum Prifc * n ^ u ^ s va " a fibi nola aflfumit :quj et in Cofmogra phias tabulis cofpiciunf/8^ Prifcianus in tralatione Dionifrj tahbus enumcrat verfibus. Circuit Oceani gurges tamen vndic]? vaftus Quicputs vnus Gtplurima nomina fumit. Finibus Hcfperrjs Athlanticus iUe vocatur At Bore^qua gens furit Armiafpa fub armis Dkit li e nig : ;r uecao Satur.idc Mortuus c~ nus Finitu.vi).kfMaij Anno fupra fcfqui miJlclimum,vii ^ i n 5 3^ ( Translation of portion of above But now these parts have been more extensively explored and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus \ espucius (as will appear in what follows): Wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it AMERIGE, or AMERICA, i.e., the land of Americus, after its discoverer, Americus, a man of sagacious mind, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women. Its situation and the manners and customs of its people will be clearly understood from the twice two voyages of Americus, which follow. Finished April 25, 1507 [9] in the hope of finding a strait through the continent, by which India might be reached. He returned to Lisbon from this voyage June 18, 1504. By the letter written by Vespucius in Lisbon a few months after his return from this, his foufth voyage, to his Florentine friend, Soderini, it appears that this voyage did not result according to his wishes, on account of a disaster to the fleet, in which the ship of Vespucius was separated by a storm, and sailed to a country situated, he relates, eighteen degrees south of the equinoctial line, and fifty-seven degrees farther west than Lisbon. Upon his return to Spain in 1504, Vespucius was in high favor with King Ferdinand, who, on March 22, i 508, created the office of Pilot-Major of Spain, and appointed Vespucius thereto, as the most eminent navigator of his king dom. Vespucius then became Chief of a Government Department pertaining to pilotage, navigation, and charts. He was directed to examine all pilots, instruct applicants, issue certificates of ability that were required before employment, and to supervise the preparation of a standard or Royal Chart by which all pilots were to be governed. The position w r as of great honor, with important emolu ment, and its onerous duties were discharged with fidelity and skill. During this service Vespucius made one short visit to Florence, where his portrait was painted and he was otherwise honored as one of its most distinguished sons. Giorgio Vasari, the painter, art critic and historian of Florence, who made a list in 1568 of painters represented in the collection of illustrious persons, founded by Casimo I, de Medici, referred therein to a portrait of Amerigo Vespucci, which is said to have been identified by the authorities of the Royal Uffizi Gallery of Florence as that numbered 702 in their present catalogue of 533 portraits of illustrious Tuscans. This portrait, a reproduction of which is hereto annexed, has been considered by some as a portrait from life, and has formed the basis for many of the portraits in America. Before departure on his great voyage, the third, Vespucius married Dona Maria Carezo, of Seville, who shared his honors at the Spanish Court, and survived him several years By reason of the active part taken by the Florentine Berardi in outfitting the ships for the several voyages of Columbus, Americus Vespucius, as the partner of Berardi, in charge of the preparations, became well acquainted with Columbus, who in a letter written at Seville on February 5, 1506, to his son, about one year after the publication of Vespucius letter to Lorenzo de Medici and during [10] the absence oi both Columbus and Vespucius on their respective voyages of exploration, states: " I held converse with Amerigo Vespucci, the bearer of this letter, who goes to Court on some business connected with navigation. He has always been desirous observing me, and is an honorable man, though fortune has been unpropitious to him, as to many others, and his labors have not been as profitable as he deserves. He goes on my account, and with a great desire to do something which may redound to my advantage if it is in his power." Americus Vespucius died February 22, 1512, at Seville, when he was 60 years of age after about four years in office as Pilot-Major of the Kingdom of Spain. He died, as it is written by Frederick A. Ober, in his "Amerigo Ves pucci," "with a name untarnished, a reputation for probity unsullied." John Fiske describes him as follows: "He seems in these earlier years, as throughout his life, to have won and retained the respect of all who knew him, as a man of integrity and modesty, quiet but some what playful in manner, mild and placable in temper, and endowed with keen intelligence. He seems to have been of middle height and somewhat brawny, with aquiline features and olive complexion, black eyes and hair, and a mouth at once firm and refined." He was highly honored by the Kings of Spain and Portugal, and the rulers of Italy, but, as he left no fortune, his widow was dependent upon the pension granted her by the Crown in a royal decree issued three months after Ves pucius death. A newspaper item from Florence under date of April 10, 1910, announces the death of his last descendant, the Countess Amerigo Vespucci, at the age of ninety-three, a Spanish pensioner, in succession of her great ancestor. In 1719 a marble tablet was placed over the entrance to the house in Florence, which "for centuries before the discovery of America was the dwell ing place of the ancestors of Amerigo Vespucci, and his own birthplace," bearing the inscription: " To -America Uespuccio, a noble Florentine, who, by the Discovery of ^America Tendered his own and his Country s name illustrious. The ^Amplifier of the World" Such are the facts in the life of Americus Vespucius. It may now be of interest to learn how the name America came to be applied to the land which Vespucius called the New World. This inquiry leads us along another trail of history, but of literature and not of adventure. f "1 VNTVERSAUS COS/AOGRAPH1A. DITIONEM WALDSF.F.MU 4 *o mi FT .V\ERIC- .ER MAP /1507 I 3] Rene II de Vandemont, reigning Duke of Lorraine and titular King of Sicily and of Jerusalem, was born in 1451, son of Ferry II, Count of Vande mont and Yolande of Anjou. After his defeat of Charles the Bold, at Nancy, in 1477, he is said to have become "an enthusiastic patron of literature and the arts " attracting men of letters, artists and scientists to Saint-Die, in the Vosges Mountains, where he established a lyceum of the fine arts in sculpture, paint ing, gold work and tapestry. Among the distinguished scholars at Saint-Die at that period were Mattias Ringmann, Professor of Latin, from Paris; Martin Waldseemuller, of Friburg, Professor of Geography; Jean Basin de Sendacour, Latinist, and Walter Lud, who introduced a printing press into that society about the year 1490. This was only 40 years after John Gutenberg, at the neighboring town of Mainz, had invented printing with single cut metal type. The facilities at Saint- Die for the publication of a printed book prompted these men of letters to consider the preparation of a later edition of the Cos mography of Ptolemy, as so many new and important discoveries had been made since its last issue. Professor Ringmann, it appears, was sent to Italy about i 506 for the latest information from the navigators and explorers. He is said to have brought back a copy of a letter written by Americus Vespucius from Lisbon in i 504, which was printed at Florence in i 506. This letter was followed by three other letters describing his voyages, extending along the coast of Brazil to Rio de Janeiro and probably to the Rio Plata and the ocean farther south to the island of South Georgia. It should be noticed that Vespucius states in his letter to his friend Soderini, giving an account of his first four voyages, that he had noted the most wonder ful things, and had indited all in a volume after the manner of a geography, and entitled it " Le Quattro Giornate." The records of these years of discoveries refer to reports made by Vespucius upon his return from his voyages to the King of Spain and the King of Portugal. Neither these reports nor the volume of " Le Quattro Giornate" have been discovered, although careful research has been made by historians of several countries in the archives of Spain and Portugal. The informal letters of Vespucius to his friends, describing his first four voyages, therefore constitute the principal direct testimony of Vespucius in regard to his discoveries. The letters were originally written in Italian "in rude and ungrammatical language, jargonized by the admixture of Spanish or [ 4] S f Copv of that part of Map of 1507 that shows the continent ot America I 5] Portuguese words and idioms." The first letter referring to three voyages was printed three or four times in 1503 and several times in 1504-1505. The Latin translation of all the letters was published in 1507. An early edition was published in Paris, where Vespucius friend Giocondo, who made the Latin translation, resided. A French version was also published, and this appears to have reached the members of the society at Saint-Die, where a Latin translation was made by Jean Basin, of that coterie, who in 1503 was in Paris, and con veyed a copy of Vespucius "Epistola" to his friends at Saint-Die. Ringmann, who had visited Italy for the latest reports from the exploring Spanish and Portuguese navigators, to use in the new edition of the cosmography of Ptolemy that was in preparation at the Saint-Die press, returned with the first letters of Vespucius in i 506, when new charts were obtained that, it was said, came from Portugal. Martin Waldseemuller, the cartographer of Saint-Die, in April 1507, wrote to his friend, Joh. Amerbach, in Basel, that "I am on the point to print in the town of Saint-Die the cosmography of Ptolemy, after having added to the same, new maps." The Ptolemy was not published until 1513. With the official letters of Vespucius at hand describing his four voyages, and the details of the locations he visited added to the new map that Cartographer Waldseemuller had in preparation, it is readily understood why the printing of the new Ptolemy was postponed, and the little book entitled "Cosmographiae Introductio" was published at Saint-Die on April 25, 1507, containing the first printed record of the word AMERICA. There was such demand for this treatise that several editions were prepared and quickly distributed, together with one thousand maps of an issue entitled "The World Map of 1507." There is one copy of the first edition of this book in the New York Public Library, as well as three copies of a later edition. The Ann Mary Brown Memorial Library of Providence, Rhode Island, the Library of the British Museum of London, and a :;: private collection in New York are believed to have one copy each of this very rare first edition. By the courtesy of the Librarian of the New York Public Library, photo graphic copies of the title page, the following quoted statement, and the last page of the text, showing the colophon and the date of April 25, 1507, are reproduced with translations herewith. * Ho/J at auction in AV-rr Toik, February {>, /<J- (>, for /_ J (>(><>. I i 6 This little book contains the first suggestion of the name AMERICA, but applied, it will be seen, to the country discovered by Vespucius, that was nearly all south of the equator. After referring to the three divisions of the earth s surface, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Waldseemuller states: " But now these parts have been more extensively explored, and another fourth part has been discovered by Americus Vespucius (as will appear in what follows) : Wherefore I do not see what is rightly to hinder us from calling it AMERIGE or AMERICA, i.e., the land of Americus, after its discoverer, Americus, a man of saga cious mind, since both Europe and Asia have got their names from women. Its situation and the manners and customs of its people will be clearly understood from the twice two voyages of Americus which follow." The maps soon became scarce, and for several hundred years were not obtain able, and their original existence would have been doubted, although mentioned in the "Cosmographiae Introductio," but for references thereto by later cartog raphers who copied various parts thereof in their maps, issued soon after i 507. Two manuscript maps were discovered at Munich and Bonn, that bear the name AMERICA. On the Bonn map, of 1510, discovered in 1896, Henricus Glareanus had written a marginal note to the effect that he had copied it from the map of the Vosgean geographer Waldseemuller. Until a copy of the world map of 1507 was discovered, 18 years ago, the earliest known map with the name AMERICA, excepting the Bonn map of 1510, above mentioned, was part of the papers of Leonardo da Vinci of 1514, which were found about 60 years ago in Queen Victoria s library at Windsor Castle. It had therefore been long contended that if the Waldseemuller map ever came to light, the newly discovered western land indicated thereon would probably be found to bear the name AMERICA, as suggested in the book of Waldseemuller of 1507. Bearing in mind that Martin Waldseemuller was the acknowledged geogra pher and cartographer of the society for the cultivation of arts and sciences at Saint-Die, under the patronage of Rene, the reigning Duke of Lorraine, we can understand his intense interest in the accounts that he had received of the voyage of Americus Vespucius, and that the brief statement in his " Cosmo graphiae Introductio" contains explanations of geometry and astronomy thought to be necessary to an understanding of the descriptions by Vespucius of the loca tion of the countries that he had discovered. As Waldseemuller had an up-to-date map in preparation for the proposed new edition of the " Cosmography of [17] u 3 a: ^ i-j b O W < ^ y C o_ *< * O ^ z DC c/: [18] Ptolemy," he had the basis for the prompt production, with the latest dis coveries, of a new map which should accompany his little book, for the purpose of the announcement to the civilized world of this most important revelation of other countries and people on the surface of the globe. The book mentioned refers to the map as a representation of universal cos-, mography, both in solido and piano, what to Ptolemy was unknown, and lately discovered. From various passages in the book we learn that the globe and map were to contain representations of the newly discovered fourth part of the w r orld. No particulars of size are given. The discovery of the long lost Waldseemuller map of 1507 was made in 1901 by Joseph Fischer, Professor of Geography at the Jesuit College, Feld- kirsch, Austria, when engaged in research in the old library of Prince Waldburg at Wolfegg Castle in Wurttemberg, Germany. The Stevens prospectus states : "Authorities have always differed considerably in their conceptions as to the probable form and size of the lost map of 1507, but no one ever suspected the existence of such a veritable cartographical monster as Professor Fischer so fortunately awakened from so many centuries of peaceful slumber in the library of Wolfegg Castle. The map is far too large to be engraved and printed on one sheet; in fact it comprises no less than i 2 sheets, each having a separate border and being therefore complete in itself. From the scope of the general design it is evident, however, that the j 2 sheets were also intended to be joined together, as in a wall map, so as to exhibit the whole world at one glance. Each sheet measures, on the average, 23^/2 inches long by \J l /2 inches high (exclusive of margin!, and the complete map is four sheets long by three sheets high. "From an art point of view 7 , too, the boldness and beauty of the design, and the skill of the engraver call for universal admiration, especially when it is remembered that the r 2 sheets, if joined up as a whole, would form one com plete design, some 8 feet long by 4 feet 6 inches wide. "The enormous size when thus made up as a wall map probably accounts for its complete disappearance, notwithstanding that, from a legend on the 1516 map, we learn that no less than a thousand copies of this 1507 map were printed. To the fact that the Wolfegg copy was not so made up, but was bound in a folio volume with the sheets folded in the centre and guarded from the back, we probably owe the survival of the only copy yet found of this [-9] Medal issued in 1903 by the American Numismatic Society, Victor D. Brenner, Sculptor. The facsimile signature of Martin Waldseemiiller is from his letter to (oh. Amerbach, of Basil, of April 7, 1507 20 ] magnificent cartographical monument. The maps are engraved on wood and the quality of the work is such as to cause admiration and astonishment at the surprising development of the art at this early date. The general design, when the 1 2 sheets are made up as a whole, is highly pleasing and artistic. The whole map is drawn on the modified cone projection of Ptolemy." This map was aptly termed by Professor Jos. Fischer, its discoverer, "The Baptismal Certificate of the New World," as stated in a circular issued by Henry N. Stevens of London in 1902, offering the original of the map for sale at the price of 8300,000. Mr. Stevens adds: "All honour then to Martin Waldseemiiller, who not only gave in his book its present name to the newly discovered Western Land, but also, as a geographer and cartog rapher, first delineated in print the outlines of that glorious discovery, and placed thereon the beautiful and time-abiding name of AMERICA which he himself had so aptly suggested." Waldseemuller applied the name AMERICA to the southern continent only, as being the lands of -the discoveries and coast explorations by Vespucius. The name AMERICA was first applied to the entire western hemisphere by Gerard Mercator upon his Mapamundi of 1538, where it appears as shown on the original engraving of this map, now in the Library of the American Geographical Society of New York, as AMERI CAE, in separate lines, on both the northern and southern continents. The public naturally adopted the prefixes North and South as appropriate and separate designations for the two continents. It was not, however, until the middle of the sixteenth century that AMERICA was recognized "as the established continental name." The Waldseemuller map of 1507 in reduced form is submitted herewith for detailed examination. A medal in commemoration of Americus Vespucius and his discoveries was published by the American Numismatic Society in 1904. It was struck in gold, silver, bronze and copper, and limited in issue to 162 medals, the dies being defaced thereafter. The design of this medal represents the portion of the map of 1507 that shows the word AMERICA, a portrait of Vespucius, and a facsimile of the signature of Martin Waldseemuller, as signed to his letter of April 7, 1507, to his friend Joh. Amerbach, of Basel. This medal is shown herein. [2,] The records referred to herein indicate, and in some important particulars may be said to prove: 1 . That Christopher Columbus and Americus Vespucius were acquainted during their respective periods of voyages of discovery, and were friends thereafter. 2. That the first four, and the principal voyages of Vespucius were made under commanders of recognized experience as seamen, while he acted at the request of the patron King as astronomer and cartographer, for which he was considered an expert. 3. That his reports to his Royal patrons, two made when in the service of the King of Spain and two when serving the King of Portugal, have not been found, nor any official reference thereto, nor the volume of his private notes that he declared his intention to publish. The only direct written evidence from him is contained in his personal letters to two intimate friends of his youth in Florence, in which there is no suggestion of a name for the countries he discovered other than a New World, of the finding of which all civilized Europe was at that period in expectation. 4. That the voyages of Columbus were directed mainly to the west in search of islands, mainland, and open waters to the west, while the voyages of Vespucius were southwesterly and southward, with the exception of his first voyage to the Carib bean Sea and Gulf of Mexico to Florida and northward along the coast as far as Chesapeake Bay. 5. That Martin Waldseemiiller, a young professor of Cartography at the lyceum of Saint-Die, in a small and remote town of the Vosges Mountains, in his efforts to keep informed about all new discoveries affecting his studies, obtained possession of the letters of Vespucius and at once recognized the importance of the information they contained, particularly as to the three voyages that disclosed a great continent mostly located south of the equator, and the Tropic of Capricorn. 6. That Waldseemiiller, without ever having seen Vespucius or having any com munication with him, and without his knowledge, suggested the name "AMERICA" because he considered it, for the reasons given, an appropriate designation of the continent discovered. The Waldseemuller World Map of 1507 bears the word ^AMERICA placed horizontally in the middle of the southern continent near the line of the Tropic of Capricorn. It thus appears that the inhabitants of that country and their descendants constitute the only original Americans, that their southern continent is the only true America, and that the map of I $0? is indeed the Baptismal Certificate of the New U^orld [22] HOMMAGE a la justice, a la moralite, et a la verite historique en faveur du nom AMERICAIN FRANCISCO ADOLPHO DE VARNHAGEN Viscount of Porto Seguro Historian [23] Bartlett Orr Press, New York 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. RECTD LD OCT 15 1956 ED t r ,.- LD 21-100m-6, 56 (B9311slO)476 T . Gen . eral , L j?"fy . University of California Berkeley