| Abstract: | ABSTRACT The Florentine Amerigo Vespucci is widely believed to have been the first European to realize on his third voyage (May 1501 to September 1502) that America was a separate land mass, unconnected to Asia and completely surrounded by water, a communis opinio refuted in the present article. Close analysis of the geographical terms used in Vespucci’s letters, and their comparison with early sixteenth-century printed cosmographies, suggest that, on the contrary, Vespucci regarded the newly discovered land mass as a southern extension of the Asian continent. Also discussed are Matthias Ringmann’s 1507 Cosmographiae Introductio and Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 world map, whose depiction of America as a separate land mass, allegedly based on Vespucci, paved the way for a concept that could not have been recognized as geographical truth in early sixteenth-century Europe. |
