75 a new continent. This humanist, diplomat, and writer was born in Arona near Milan, lived fi rst in Rome, and then settled in the Castilian court in 1492, where he became a historian of discovery. His abundant correspondence formed the basis of his famous work De Orbe Novo (On the New World). While this fi rst of his Decades, written between 1493 and 1510, was published only in Latin in Seville in 1511, parts of it had already appeared well before then. The fi rst two books are composed of his fi rst two letters written to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza of Milan, dated November 13, 1493, and April 29, 1494. In them, d’Anghiera expresses skepticism with regard to the Asian hypothesis. From the beginning of the second letter on, he even refers to the “New World” (Orbe Novo), a term which he originated. Between 1500 and 1502, Amerigo Vespucci addressed several letters to Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de’ Medici, Florence’s ambassador to the King of France, including one in September of 1502, which describes his third voyage. It was promptly translated into Latin and appeared in Paris in 1503, then in Venice the next year with the title “Mundus Novus” (A New World). Eleven editions of this text appeared all over Europe between 1503 and 1506, which clearly demonstrates the impact it had. These essential texts established the true importance of the discovery, and their contents were a sensation. In them, Vespucci advanced the idea that the newly explored lands were not part of Asia, but of a new and distinct continent. How did Vespucci’s given name become America’s? The Florentine explorer’s posthumous glory was ensured by a group of monks in Saint-Dié, a small town in the Vosges Mountains in eastern France. In April 1507, this group of literati known as the Gymnasium Vosagense, which were also notable for being geographers, published the Cosmographiae Introductio, which was accompanied by an atlas that included the recent discoveries that had enlarged the known world. The book christens the continent. In Chapter IX, the author states: “A fourth part of the world was discovered by Amerigo Vespucci and I see no reason why anyone would oppose giving it a name derived from his …—Ameri-gê, the land of Amerigo—or rather America, since the names of Europe and Asia are also derived from female names.” In the accompanying map and later revision of Ptolomy’s Geographiae, cartographer Martin Waldseemüller rendered the new continent simply as a narrow strip outlining the continent’s eastern coast as it was known at the time and identifi es it as AMERICA. No one then had any conception of the new continent’s breadth and size, but its name would certainly live on. FIG. 15 (above): Hacha in the form of a skull. Maya, Guatemala. AD 600–800. Volcanic stone. H: 21 cm. FIG. 16 (below): Olla. Cocle, Macaracas style, Panama. AD 850–1000. Polychromed terracotta. Diam: 39 cm. FIG. 17 (right): Vessel, urpu. Inca, Peru. AD 1400–1550. Polychromed terracotta. H: 45 cm.
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