The world map

The world map of Giovanni Vespucci is one of the most impressive nautical charts of the Discovery Era. Vespucci was the nephew of the Florentine discoverer, navigator and cartographer Amérigo Vespucci, the man who gives the American continent its name. Amérigo was designated as a major captain of the Contract House of Seville in 1508. This house was the institution responsible for supervising all of the exploration, colonization and trade between Spain and its dominions in the New World. It was in charge of updating a nautical chart of reference, called a “royal census”, from which copies were made for the captains who went to the new continent. One of Amérigo’s first projects was to create the first royal census. After the death of his uncle in 1512, Giovanni Vespucci inherited all of his charts, maps and navigational instruments. The world map of Vespucci from 1526 is a decorated copy of the royal census. It was probably a gift to Charles the Fifth on the occasion of his wedding with Isabella of Portugal. The crest of Hapsburg is placed above North America and is signed: “Juan Vespucci, captain of His Majesties, 1526”. Only two holograph charts of Juan Vespucci are known: his world map and a chart of the Mediterranean. Both are kept in the General Archive of Indias, in Seville