What is in a name? Though Amerigo is, in the main, a biography of Amerigo Vespucci, the Italian explorer after whom the Americas were named, it is this question which rests at the heart of Mr. Fernandez-Armestoe's tale. Does it matter that North and South America were named for a pimp turned merchant turned explorer who was not even the first person to make landfall in the western Atlantic? Likely not. After all, very little about Amerigo's life has survived the turbulence of 500 years of history that separate us from him, but it does afford us an opportunity to examine a difficult man whose life was enshrouded in mystery.
Born into a 15th century Italy ruled by the Medici clan, Amerigo was the hard-living son of a moderately successful family. Tutored in both the classics and the romance languages, he appears to have enjoyed his proximity to power while partaking of the pleasures of the bawdy street. In pursuit of success and fortune, Vespucci eventually relocated to Seville where upon, after enduring the highs and lows of business, he traded the tempestuousness of a merchant's life for the actual tempests of the sea, taking to the life of an explorer without any formal training. Though Vespucci's boasts make it difficult to parse out truth from lies, it is clear that he did succeed Columbus in making landfall in the New World, arriving in South America some few years after Columbus mistook the Caribbean for India. What's more, he made valuable contributions to the methodology of calculating latitude and longitude, procedures which were used into the 19th century.
Mr. Fernandez-Armesto must be commended. He has rescued from the sea of mythology a figure enshrouded in mystery, skinning him of his many lies and boasts to produce for his readers the bare bones of Amerigo Vespucci's life. In this, he discards all romanticism and embellishment in an admirable effort to get at the truth of the man after whom the new world was named. Unfortunately, this commendable obsession with the accuracy of his subject is also what dooms Mr. Fernandez-Armesto's history. For after sweeping away all the half-truths, the author is left with precious few facts about a man who has all-but-been eclipsed by the tides of time. It may be justice that Amerigo Vespucci's adventures be solidified for posterity here, but the fragments of the man are too few and too far between to fill out his portrait. And after all, is this not the purpose of a biography, to illuminate a human subject in all his brilliance and his blundering? There is only something in a name when the name means something. It is difficult to extract meaning from a handful of shards.
The scholarship is first rate, but the reader is left with little of value. (2/5 Stars)
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