Did you know that America was named after Amerigo Vespucci? Amerigo was born in Florence and was a navigator, merchant and explorer. He took part in the early voyages to the New World and in one of those expeditions he realised and became convinced that the newly discovered lands were not part of Asia, as Columbus had thought, but a New World on its own. In 1507, a German cartographer named Martin Waldseemüller, who had read Vespucci’s accounts of his travels and been fascinated by them, put forth the suggestion that the new lands should be named “quasi Americi terram sive Americam” -in other words, “as if it was the land of Americus or America.” Furthermore, Walseemüller created a large planisphere – the world’s first mappa mundi- on which the name ‘America’ appeared for the first time.
