Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to AmericaRandom House, 2007 - 231 páginas In 1507, European cartographers were struggling to redraw their maps of the world and to name the newly found lands of the Western Hemisphere. The name they settled on: America, after Amerigo Vespucci, an obscure Florentine explorer. In "Amerigo," the award-winning scholar Felipe Fernandez-Armesto answers the question "What's in a name?" by delivering a rousing flesh-and-blood narrative of the life and times of Amerigo Vespucci. Here we meet Amerigo as he really was: a sometime slaver and small-time jewel trader; a contemporary, confidant, and rival of Columbus; an amateur sorcerer who attained fame and honor by dint of a series of disastrous failures and equally grand self-reinventions. Filled with well-informed insights and amazing anecdotes, this magisterial and compulsively readable account sweeps readers from Medicean Florence to the Sevillian court of Ferdinand and Isabella, then across the Atlantic of Columbus to the brave New World where fortune favored the bold. Amerigo Vespucci emerges from these pages as an irresistible avatar for the age of exploration-and as a man of genuine achievement as a voyager and chronicler of discovery. A product of the Florentine Renaissance, Amerigo in many ways was like his native Florence at the turn of the sixteenth century: fast-paced, flashy, competitive, acquisitive, and violent. His ability to sell himself-evident now, 500 years later, as an entire hemisphere that he did not "discover" bears his name-was legendary. But as Fernandez-Armesto ably demonstrates, there was indeed some fire to go with all the smoke: In addition to being a relentless salesman and possibly a ruthless appropriator of other people's efforts, Amerigo was foremost a person of unique abilities, courage, and cunning. And now, in "Amerigo," this mercurial and elusive figure finally has a biography to do full justice to both the man and his remarkable era. "A dazzling new biography . . . an elegant tale." -"Publishers Weekly" (starred review) "An outstanding historian of Atlantic exploration, Fernandez-Armesto delves into the oddities of cultural transmission that attached the name America to the continents discovered in the 1490s. Most know that it honors Amerigo Vespucci, whom the author introduces as an amazing Renaissance character independent of his name's fame-and does Fernandez-Armesto ever deliver." -"Booklist "(starred review) |
Índice
CHAPTER ONE THE SORCERERS APPRENTICESHIP | 3 |
CHAPTER TWO THE PROSPECT FROM EXILE | 38 |
CHAPTER THREE THE STARGAZER AT SEA | 62 |
CHAPTER FOUR THE SPELLBINDERS BOOKS | 94 |
CHAPTER SIX THE CONJURERS STAGE | 167 |
NOTES AND REFERENCES | 205 |
221 | |
Otras ediciones - Ver todo
Amerigo: The Man Who Gave His Name to America Felipe Fernández-Armesto Vista previa restringida - 2008 |
Amerigo: The Man who Gave His Name to America Felipe Fernández-Armesto No hay ninguna vista previa disponible - 2007 |
Términos y frases comunes
America Amerigo Vespucci Antipodes astrolabe Atlantic authenticity Berardi Cabral Cádiz called Caminha Canary Canary Islands cannibals Casa Casa de Contratación Castile Castilian century classical coast Colón Columbus Columbus's continent cosmographer degrees Dié discoveries documents edition evidence expedition explorers Fernández-Armesto fleet Florence Florentine Francesco geographical Giorgio Antonio globe hemisphere hero Hispaniola Hojeda humanist Ibid island Italian king land latitude least longitude Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco Lorenzo the Magnificent Luzzana Caraci Magnificent Mandeville manuscript maravedies Medici medieval Melaka merchant Mundus Novus natives navigation never passage patron Pedro Álvares Cabral perhaps Petrarch Piero pilots Portugal Portuguese printed Ptolemy readers Renaissance Ridolfi Fragment Ringmann sail scholars second voyage seems Seville ship Soderini Letter sources Spain Spanish stars surviving tion Toscanelli trade tradition travel literature Tupi Varela Vespucci claimed Vespucci's account Vespucci's voyages Waldseemüller writer wrote