[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."