spucci had
mapped out a great career for the son whom he had chosen to recreate
the fortunes of his house. He was to be a banker, a diplomat;
eventually he might attain, like the greatest of the Medici, to the
station and dignities of a merchant prince. To this end the worthy
Georgio Antonio ever strove, and as he found his nephew a tractable
and studious pupil, he congratulated himself and his family that in
Amerigo they had the individual who was to restore the prestige of
their ancient name.

But alas! the sequel proved that Friar Georgio was too ambitious, and
had overshot the mark. In his desire to turn out a finished product, a
scholar that should be a credit to his school and an ornament to his
family, he not only inculcated the essentials for a commercial
education, but, as has already been mentioned, led his eager follower
into the wider fields of astronomy and cosmography. All he knew--and
that included all the ancients knew--of these abstruse sciences he
imparted to Amerigo, and in the end, so far as we can judge, the young
man became more proficient in them than any other person of his age
and time. So it eventuated that those studies, which were intended
merely as subsidiary to the more serious pursuit, became the prime
factors in shaping his career. They were his stepping-stones to
greatness, as were his mercantile transactions; but, anticipating
somewhat the events of his later life, we shall find that they did not
conduce to the acquisition of wealth.

"In Florence," says the author previously quoted, "more than in any
other Italian city during the Middle Ages, was displayed the direct
influence of commerce upon the developments of all the finer elements
of material and immaterial civilization. She was the Athens of Italy,
and her art, literature, and science was the brightest gleam of
intellectual light that was seen in Europe during that age. It was
from Florence, more than from any other source, that came the
awakening influence known as the Renaissance."

This truth we see exemplified in the formative period of Amerigo
Vespucci's life, for, in order to become qualified to adorn the high
position of a prince of commerce, he was as carefully trained as if to
fill a prelate's chair or grasp the helm of state. So reluctant was
his uncle, the good old monk Georgio, to relinquish his talented
nephew to the world, that we find them in company as late as 1471, as
attested by this letter, written in Latin