337 



VESPUCCI, AMERIGO. 



VICI, ANDREA. 



333 



Ho was affable to hia friends, and even suffered severe strictures on 

 lus conduct to pass unpunished. The banishment and death of Hel- 

 vidius Priscus are said to have been executed against the will of the 

 emperor. He was fond of money, but what he exacted from his 

 subjects he spent on public works, not on his own pleasures. He was 

 a liberal patron of literature and art. 



The reign of Vespasian was signalised by great military successes, 

 of which the most important were the victories of Petilius Cerealis 

 over the Treviri (A.D. 70), those of Agricola in Britain, and the con- 

 quest of Jerusalem, for which the emperor and his son Titus triumphed 

 iu the year 71, when the temple of Jauus was shut, and that of Peace 

 was built. In the following year the kingdom of Commagene was 

 taken from Antiochus and added to the Roman empire. 



In the last year of his reign a conspiracy was formed against him 

 by Aulus Csecina and Epirus Marcellus, who were detected and put 

 to death. Not long after this Vespasian died of a fever, June 23rd, 

 A.D. 79, in the seventieth year of his age and the 10th of his reign. 



(Tacitus, Histor. ; Suetonius, Vespasian.) 



VESPUCCI, AMERI'GO, was born fifteen years later than Columbus, 

 on the 9th of March 1451, at Florence. He was the third son of 

 Anastftsio Vespucci, a notary of Florence. The family had been 

 enriched by commerce some generations earlier, and possessed landed 

 property at Peretola near Florence. Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, uncle 

 of Amerigo, a monk of the congregation of St. Mark, was a friend of 

 the Platonician Ficini of Florence. Giorgio Antonio took charge of 

 the education of bis nephew, who appears however to have profited 

 little by his classical studies. Bandini has published a Latin letter 

 written by Amerigo to his father in 1476 (when the writer was 

 twenty-five years of age), in which he confesses that he had been 

 obliged to consult his Latin grammar while writing, and that he was 

 afraid to venture on a few lines of Latin in his uncle's absence. 



AmerL'o resided at Florence in 1489. Before this time however 

 mercantile avocations had led him to Spain. Documents published 

 by Munoz show that Amerigo was a factor in the wealthy Florentine 

 house of Juanoto Bernardi, at Seville, in 1486. In 1493 we find him 

 again in Spain, and anxious to quit the country. On the death of 

 Juanoto Bernardi, in 1495, he was placed at the head of the factory. 

 His name occurs in the Spanish archives for the first time on the 

 12th of January 1796. 



In the narrative attributed to Vespucci, published at St. Die* iu 

 Lorraine, in 1507, and republished at the same place in 1509, he is 

 said to have made four voyages: two under the auspices of the king 

 of Castile, in 1497 and 1499; two by command of the king of Por- 

 tugal, in 1501 and 1503. The first has been alleged to be apocryphal 

 by some warm supporters of the claims of Columbus to be the original 

 discoverer of the mainland of America, as well as of the islands, who 

 have not scrupled to attribute to Vespucci a fraudulent attempt to 

 arrogate to himself the honour due to Columbus. Humboldt in the 

 fourth volume of his ' Histoire de la Geographic du Nouveau Con- 

 tinent,' has successfully vindicated Vespucci from this imputation and 

 proved that there is every reason to believe that the voyage really was 

 made, though at a later date than appears in the printed book. M. 

 Humboldt has by a minute and exact analysis identified the four 

 voyages of Vespucci : the first, with the voyage of Alonso de Hojeda, 

 commenced on the 20th of May 1499, terminated on the 15th October 

 1499 ; the second, with the voyage of Yafiez Pinzon, commenced in 

 the beginning of December 1499, terminated on the 30th of September 

 1500 ; the third, with the voyage of Pedro Alvarez Cabral, commenced 

 on the 10th of May 1501, terminated 7th of September 1502; the 

 fourth, with that of Gonzalez Coelho, commenced on the 10th of May 

 1503, terminated on the 18th of June 1504. 



These dates remove all doubts as to the priority of Columbus's dis- 

 covery. The expedition of Hojeda coasted in 1499 the shores of 

 Paria, which had been discovered by Columbus in the preceding year. 

 For the mistake of substituting the year 1497 for 1499, M. Humboldt 

 lias shown that Vespucci cannot be held responsible. The brief and 

 unsatisfactory narrative in which the error occurs was printed in 

 Lorraine, without his knowledge and consent. It is evident from 

 authentic documents that Amerigo was in the later years of Colum- 

 bus's life an attached and trusted friend of the admiral; and from the 

 footing on which he stood with the family and friends of Columbus, 

 years after the publication of his narrative, that they did not suspect 

 him of any attempt to arrogate to himself the honours due to their 

 parent. The accident of the new continent receiving its name from 

 Amerigo has been attributed by M. Humboldt with great plausibility 

 to ignorance of the history of the discovery (at that time jealously 

 guarded as a state secret), leading the publisher of Vespucci's narra- 

 tive to propose that it should be called after him, and to the musical 

 sound of the name catching the public ear. 



Vespucci appears to have served, in all the expeditions he was 

 engaged in, in the capacity of astronomer. It is evident from the 

 letters of that age, that, owing to want of confidence in the astro- 

 nomical knowledge of the practical pilots, it was customary to associate 

 with them some person of scientific acquirements in the great voyages 

 of discovery. Vespucci himself tells us that his taste for adventures 

 of discovery was contracted while engaged as a merchant in the out- 

 fit of exploring squadrons. As early as 1593 he had expressed dis- 

 satisfaction with his position at Seville; a dissatisfaction probably 



BIOG. piv, VOL. vi. 



originating in aversion to mercantile pursuits. His writings, frag- 

 mentary and ill-printed though they be, evince scientific tastes and 

 acquirements. 



From the service of the crown of Spain in which Vespucci made 

 his earliest voyages, he was allured into that of Portugal, in which he 

 made the third and fourth. Disappointed in hia expectations, he 

 returned to Spain, and appears to have been soliciting employment at 

 the time of Columbia's death. In 1507 he was intrusted with the 

 victualling and furnishing of a royal fleet fitted out in that year. On 

 the 22nd of March 1508, he obtained the appointment of piloto-major, 

 which he retained till his death. Hia commission contains bitter 

 complaints of the ignorance of pilots, and charges him, before licensing 

 any person to exercise the employment, to examine him strictly in the 

 use of the astrolabe and the quadrant, and to ascertain whether he 

 understands the practice as well as the theory of the instrument. 



Amerigo Vespucci died at Seville, on the 22nd of February 1512. 

 He died poor; his widow found considerable difficulty in obtaining 

 payment of a miserable pension of 10,000 maravedis, with which the 

 emoluments of his successor were burdened in her favour. An acci- 

 dent has given notoriety to the name of Amerigo Vespucci, at the 

 expense of suspicions which he deserved as little as his chance-medley 

 distinction. He appears to have been a skilful astronomer for his age ; 

 an able manager of the commissariat department; an enthusiastic 

 adventurer in the career of discovery ; a warm-hearted, honest man. 

 But he is far inferior to Columbus, Cabot, Diaz, or Gama, men who 

 combined originality of conception with their enterprising spirits, and 

 who belong to the class of heroes and men of genius." 



(Humboldt, Examen Critique de THistoire de la Geographic du 

 Nouveau Continent, Paris, 1839; Cosmographice Introductio, insuper 

 Quatuor Amend Vespucci Navigationes, Strassburg, 1507 and 1509; 

 Bandini, Vita e Leltere di Amerigo Vespucci, Florence, 1745; Irving, 

 A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, London, 

 1828.) 



VETTO'RI, PIE'TRO, born of a noble family at Florence, in 1499, 

 studied classical literature in his native town, and afterwards law at 

 Pisa. He went to Rome with his relative Francesco Vettori, on a 

 mission to Pope Clement VII. On his return to Florence he joined 

 the republican party which drove away the Medici in 1527. Hia 

 relatives Francesco and Paolo Vettori acted a vacillating and even 

 false part iu those transactions. When the arms of Charles V. subdued 

 Florence and gave it to Duke Alessandro de' Medici, Pietro Vettori 

 retired to the country and applied himself entirely to study. He 

 afterwards went to Rome, until he was recalled to Florence by the 

 Duke Cosmo I., who appointed him professor of Latin and Greek 

 literature. He remained many years in that chair, which he filled 

 with great reputation. He published editions of Cicero, Terence, 

 Varro, Sallust, of the Roman writers on agriculture, as well as the 

 Greek text of -^Eschylus, of the 'Electra' of Euripides, of several 

 dialogues of Plato and Aristotle, and other Greek writers. He wrote 

 commentaries, in Latin, on the works of Aristotle, and on the book on 

 elocution of Demetrius Phalereus. He wrote in the same language 

 ' Variae Lectiones,' in thirty-eight books, in which he explains and 

 comments upon numerous passages of ancient writers, and also several 

 orations. In Italian he wrote orations on the occasion of the death of 

 Duke Cosmo I. and of the Emperor Maximilian II. He also wrote 

 several small poems in Italian, and a didactic treatise on the culti- 

 vation of the olive-tree, 'Trattato delle Lodi e delle Coltivazione 

 degli Ulivi,' Florence, 1574, often reprinted and much valued. Many 

 of his letters are inserted in the collection of the ' Prose Florentine ' 

 and in other collections. Vettori was one of the most accomplished, 

 scholars of a learned age. He died at Florence in December, 1585. 



(Tiraboschi, Storia della Letteratura Italiana; Coruiaui, / Secoli 

 della Letteratura Italiana.) 



VICENTE, GIL. [Ga VICENTE.] 



VICI, ANDRE'A, architect to the grand-duke of Tuscany, was 

 born at Arcevia in the Marca d'Ancona, 1744. Having gone through 

 the usual course of education at Perugia, he was sent to Rome to 

 study painting and architecture, the first under Stefano Pozzi, the 

 other under Carlo Murena ; and it was the second of these two arts 

 which he decided upon following as his profession. That he gave 

 early promise of more than ordinary talent appears from the cir- 

 cumstance of Vanvitelli engaging him as his assistant when he was 

 about, it is said, to begin the palace of Caserta : yet the last part of 

 this statement is evidently incorrect, because at that time Vici could 

 not have been more than eight or nine years old. That he was how- 

 ever for some time with Vanvitelli is certain, for he was commissioned 

 by him to attend to matters of business connected with the Mola di 

 Pontano; in consequence of which he became known at Rome as 

 a skilful engineer. In 1780 the court of Tuscany appointed him. 

 hydraulic architect and engineer for the Val di Chiana, and in 1787 he 

 was employed in a similar capacity by the papal government in the 

 work of draining the Pontine marshes, and preventing the inundations 

 of the Teppia. At a later period (1810) he erected the ' muraglione ' or 

 embankment at Tivoli, to support the left bank of the Aiiio. Of his 

 architectural works, though they were neither inconsiderable nor few 

 in number, the names alone are recorded, and those have no dates 

 attached to them. Yet one of them at least would seem to deserve 

 somo little notice, for it is i-pokcn of as ' la superba Cattedrale di 



z 



