ters use either
the Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, or the Latinized, Americus Vespucius,
with good authority for both.

[2] From the _General History of Commerce_, by W. C. Webster, Ph.D.

[3] This letter was discovered by Signor Bandini, author of the _Vita
e Lettre di Amerigo Vespucci_, 1745, in the Strozzi Library. Harrisse
says, "This, and two or three signatures added to receipts, which were
brought to light by Navarrete, constitute the only autographs of
Vespucius known."

In the original paper he uses the Latin form, Vespucius; but in a
letter written in 1508, when he was pilot-major of Spain, he signs
himself "Amerigo Vespucci."

II

AMERIGO'S FRIENDS AND TEACHERS

1470-1482

Florence, in Vespucci's day, was the home of genius, of culture, and
of art. Amerigo, doubtless, was acquainted with some of her sons whose
fame, like his own, has endured to the present day, and will last for
all time. The great Michael Angelo, who was born at or near Florence
in 1475, and whose patron was Lorenzo the Magnificent, was his
contemporary, although the artist and sculptor survived the discoverer
more than fifty years. Savonarola, who came to Florence in 1482, was
just a year the junior of Amerigo, and is said to have been an
intimate friend of his uncle, who, like himself, belonged to the
Dominican order. The young man may not have been touched by
Buonarroti's art, nor have been moved by Savonarola's preaching, but,
like the former, he possessed an artistic temperament, and, like the
latter, he was an enthusiast.

The man, however, who, next to his uncle, shaped Amerigo's career and
turned him from trade to exploration, was a learned Florentine named
Toscanelli. If you have followed the fortunes of Christopher Columbus,
reader, you have seen this name before, for it was Toscanelli who, in
the year 1474, sent a letter and a chart to the so-called discoverer
of America, which confirmed him in the impression that a route to
India lay westward from Europe across the "Sea of Darkness."

It is not known just when Amerigo first met "Paul the Physicist," as
Toscanelli was called in Florence; but it may have been in youth or
early manhood, for aside from the fact that "all the world" knew and
reverenced the famous _savant_, there was the inclination arising from
a mutual interest in cosmography and astronomy. Toscanelli was the
foremost scientist of his age, and as he was born in 1397, at the time
Amerigo met him he mu