by Clements R. Markham (Translator), Alex Struik (Illustrator), Amerigo Vespucci (Author)
Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 - February 22, 1512) was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto unknown to Afro-Eurasians. Colloquially referred to as the New World, this second super continent came to be termed "America", probably taking its name from the feminized Latin version of Vespucci's first name. In his letters are an account of the four voyages to the Americas made by Vespucci between 1497 and 1504. From these letters, the European public learned about the newly discovered continents of the Americas for the first time; its existence became generally known throughout Europe within a few years of the letters' publication.