Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America

Although Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512) was not the first to make the discovery, cartographer Martin Waldseemuller declared in 1507 that: 'I see no reason why we should not call this other place Amerige or America, after the wise man who discovered it.'

But, as this biography reveals, Vespucci was not a wise man. He was a master of salesmanship and self-promotion, a ruthless and shameless borrower of others' ideas and experiences, especially those of Christopher Columbus. We follow his life from his youth in the Florence of the Medici to the Spain of Ferdinand and Isabella, to Seville, then to the high seas and the voyages to South America. A fascinating tale of self-invention in the great Age of Discovery.