e, that
all who are versed in the latter may learn how many wonderful things
are being discovered every day, and that the temerity of those who
want to probe the Heavens and their majesty, and to know more than is
allowed to know, be confounded: as, notwithstanding the long time
since the world began to exist, the vastness of the earth and what it
contains is still unknown."

This inscription meant that Vespucci's letter had opened the eyes of
even the clerics to the fact that there was much in the world then
undiscovered, and existing contrary to their preconceived notions. The
interpreter was a Dominican friar of erudition for his times, one
Giovanni Giocondo, an eminent mathematician of Verona, and an
architect, who was then living in Paris, where, it is said, he was
engaged in building the bridge of Notre Dame. It was a Giocondo, and
perhaps this same man, who was sent by King Emanuel to persuade
Vespucci to enlist in his service (as told by him on page 170); but
whether the same, or one of his family, he was intimately acquainted
with the famous Florentines, including Vespucci, the Medici, and Piero
Soderini. He, doubtless, saw the letters written by Vespucci when in
manuscript, and condensed them into his narration, giving full credit
to the author in his publication. He was the unconscious cause of an
injustice to Columbus, perhaps, and also of undue prominence being
given to the name of Amerigo Vespucci, for it was through the issue of
his book that, in a roundabout way, the appellation _America_ came to
be bestowed upon the western continents.

We will elaborate this argument in another chapter; but (requesting
the reader meanwhile to retain these premises in his mind) we will
first follow Vespucci on his fourth, and last, important voyage to the
southern hemisphere. In a passage appended to the letter quoted in the
previous chapter, and which we herewith reproduce, Vespucci says:

"My three journeys I think I shall defer writing about in
full until another time. Probably when I have returned safe
and sound to my native country, with the aid and counsel of
learned men, and the encouragement of friends, I shall write
with care a larger work than this. Your excellency [Lorenzo
de Medici] will pardon me for not having sent you the
journals which I kept from day to day in this my last
navigation, as I had promised to do. The king has been the
cause of it, and he stil