Amerigo Vespucci

Vespucci was the one person for whom

North and South America was named after. Vespucci had a wonderful life and found many things on his voyages.

Amerigo Vespucci was born in Florence, Italy in March of

1451, and grew up in a considerable mansion near the river.

As a young boy, Amerigo's happiest moments studying the stars. He excelled in mathematics and his hobby was copying maps. His dream as a young boy was to travel and get a better picture about what the Earth looked like.

Amerigo spent half of his life as a business man hoping to strike it rich so he could explore. Amerigo was the third son, there were two older brothers, Antonio and Girolamo, the youngest was Bernardo. The parents were Stagio and

Elisabetta Vespucci. Italy, at this time was not yet a civilized country. Italy was a bunch of city- states each self governed and looking for money for it's own purposes and not for the benefit of the country. Florence, where Amerigo was born and grew up, was in the city-state governed by the powerful

Medici family. Later in Vespucci's life he ends up working for this family helping govern the city-state. Italy, at this time was not a good country as it is today. In 1492 Vespucci left

Florence for Seville, Spain because Italy had the monopoly and didn't need, or want, exploration. Well into his forties, around 1495, Vespucci became the director of a ship company that supplied ships for long voyages. This was the first opportunity Vespucci had to make voyages and he was very ...