Tuesday, February 16, 2016

500th Anniversary of The Discovery of America by Amerigo Vespucci 30.10.1987

This Spanish stamp with the impressive postmarks on the Cover was issued to commemorate the 500th Anniversary of The Discovery of  America, an honour Amerigo Vespucci (1454-1512), who was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer who first demonstrated that Brazil and the West Indies did not represent Asia's eastern outskirts as initially conjectured from Columbus' voyages, but instead constituted an entirely separate landmass hitherto unknown. Colloquially referred to as the New World, this second super continent came to be termed"America", deriving its name from the feminized Latin version of Vespucci's first name.

No comments:

Post a Comment