672 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS. 



(5) Jean Basin, of St. Die, uses the names of Amerige and Ainericus 

 in translating from the French into Latin the second letter of Vespucci, 

 entitled, Quatuor navigationea ; and the Vosgian Gymnasium proposes 

 in 1507 to name the New World America, in honor of its discoverer 

 Amerige Vespucci. 



(6) On the 9th of December, 1508, Vespucci wrote a letter to the Arch- 

 bishop of Toledo, lately published in fac-simile by the Spanish Govern- 

 ment, signed Amerrigo Vespucci, Piloto mor (major). 



(7) From 1508 until 1512, the date of his death, two or three signatures 

 of Vespucci have been found in Spain, all written with the double r and 

 without the letter h, Amerrigo instead of Amerigho of 1492, showing a 

 willful alteration in the spelling of his Christian name, after the chris- 

 tening of the New World in his honor, at St. Die, in 1507. 



(8) In 1515, Shoener says that the name Aiuericaia generally used to 

 designate the New World. 



(9) The first map, with an authentic date, on which the name America 

 has been found, is the map of Apianus, in the Polyhistor of Soliuus in 

 1520. 



(10) In 1533, twenty-one years after the death of Vespucci, Schoener, 

 an astronomer and geographer of good standing and just reputation, ac- 

 cuses Vespucci of havin g written his name on charts ; but he did not 

 say how the name was spelled. The Americanist Henry Harrisse 

 thinks that Shoener "had fastened on the memory of Vespucius the 

 odious charge of having artfully inserted the words Terra di Amerigo 

 in charts which he has otherwise altered." * Vespucci may have inserted 

 Terra di Amerriques^ an exact name, very closely allied to the new spell- 

 ing of his Christian name Amerrigo, and which has led Schoener to 

 make the accusation. The exact expressions used by Schoener are : 

 " Americus Vesputius maritima loca Indise superioresex Hispaniisnav- 

 igio ad occidentem perlustrans, cam partem quae superioris Indite est, 

 crediditesse Insulam quam a suo nomine vocariinstituit" (In: Joanis 

 Schoeneri Carolostadii opusculum geographicum ex Diversorum libris, etc., 

 etc., Norica, Novembris xxxiii). 



No maps made by Vespucci have been found, although we know that 

 he made some. 



One thing is certain, it is that Vespucci did not discover the New 

 World, and another fact is also certain, that Amerriqueis an indigenous 

 name. From the central part of the coutinent, just about the middle, 

 the name Amerrique or Amerique in French or America in Latin 

 extended first southward and then northward, until finally we have the 

 Three Americas. 



Geographically the name Amerrique has never varied, the Latin name 

 America and the French AmtVi(/?*e have always been spelled without any 

 changes among the letters on all tiie maps and charts; while, on the 

 contrary, the Christian name of Vespucci had varied from Amerigho to 



"Bibliotheoa AmericaaaVetustiasima, p. 304. 



