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Pietro Omodeo, Amerigo Vespucci: The Historical Context of His Explorations and Scientific Contribution

Enrico Pasini
Bibliographical reference

Pietro Omodeo, Amerigo Vespucci: The Historical Context of His Explorations and Scientific Contribution (“Knowledge Hegemonies in the Early Modern World”, 1), edited by Pietro Daniel Omodeo, Edizioni Ca’ Foscari–Digital Publishing, Venezia, 2020, p. 227. ISBN 9788869694028, 9788869694035. Licensed as CC: BY.

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1Pietro Omodeo, who turned 100 last year, is among Italy’s preeminent historians of science. His grandson Pietro Daniel, who is precisely 60 years younger and teaches history and philosophy of science in Venice, has edited for publication this book, available at http://doi.org/​10.30687/​978-88-6969-402-8, that is in a way an appropriate homage to a lineage of great scholarship initiated by the Author’s father, historian Adolfo Omodeo. A portrait of Pietro Omodeo sketched by the renowned Chinese artist Huang Yongyu can be found in the volume.

  • 1 P. Omodeo, The Authenticity of Amerigo Vespucci’s Mundus Novus and Information Untold about His Thi (...)

2The Author had already presented the main outcomes of this research in a Nuncius paper of 2014 and an Italian book of 2017:1 that the first translator of Vespucci’s letters had been the tireless polymath Giovanni Giocondo da Verona; that the letters were not deceptive, although Amerigo hyperbolized a bit (just like the other explorers would do), while the translator himself exaggerated appealing facts; that for various reasons Vespucci omitted some facts, without this impairing the overall truthfulness of his writings; that Waldseemüller’s world map contained important information that originated straight from Vespucci.

3The book does not disclose any new sources: it is an exhaustive effort of re-assessment and re-interpretation of available data and documents, some of which are reproduced among the copious illustrations. Thus the work amounts prima facie to an extensive biography of Vespucci: his education, studies, first expeditions and main voyages are presented on the background, and in the aftermath, of Columbus’, de Gama’s, Cabot’s, and Pacheco Pereira’s successful enterprises, and of the ensuing economical and political developments. The Author’s intention is clearly to uphold the consistency of Vespucci’s biography as it is known, against the dismissive tendency that characterized many studies of the 19th and 20th century. But polemics are kept to a minimum—these sections are very readable, and will provide the reader unacquainted with the matter with a helpful introduction.

4The presence of an overall likable narrative should not distract too much: in the end the purpose of the book is to show, against the tenets of a mistrutful historiography, not only that transmitted knowledge of Vespucci’s life is sound, but also that the documents and texts that Vespucci purportedly produced and were circulated among his contemporaries, and eventually were transmitted to posterity are authentic, reliable, indeed veracious. Restorative historiography, as often can follow revisionist waves, is thus provided here, and mostly with quite solid foundations, and not without some surprising use of sources, like when Omodeo compares Vespucci’s and Darwin’s observations concerning the Tierra del Fuego and its inhabitants.

  • 2 The reader may be referred to D. Baldi, M. Maggini, M. Marrani (eds.), Le origini toscane della Cos (...)

5From the point of view of intellectual history, the most relevant chapters are possibly n. 13, “Vespucci and the Coterie of Saint-Dié-des-Vosges”, and 14, “The Final Years of Vespucci and His Scientific Merits”. The latter is a classical history of reception, and is very informative. Chapter 13 is the most original and concerns itself with the Cosmographiae Introductio cum quibusdam geometriae ac astronomiae principiis ad eam rem necessariis. Insuper quatuor Americi Vespucii Navigationes, authored by Matthias Ringmann, Johannes Adelphus, and the not-yet-distinguished cartographer Martin Waldseemüller, that appeared in St-Dié in 1507 and was reprinted in Strassburg in 1509. This section is surely impressive, in that its backbone is a very detailed and precise analysis of the cartographic/cosmographic aspects of the St-Dié booklet and map, that fully supports the author’s theses on their dependence upon information provided, directly or indirectly, by Vespucci himself. At the same time, the reconstruction of the historical context and of the dynamics of collaboration and networking of the group that produced the Introductio, seems to be rather conjectural and slightly schematic, and no references or documental sources are clearly provided.2 Yet even if this side of the story is quite out of focus in the author’s approach, indeed, as regards its principal motif, this book is a welcome contribution to the English-language debates on Vespucci, his context, and his legacy.

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Notes

1 P. Omodeo, The Authenticity of Amerigo Vespucci’s Mundus Novus and Information Untold about His Third Journey. Nuncius 29(2014): 359-388; Id., Amerigo Vespucci e l’annuncio del nuovo mondo (Roma: Artemide, 2017).

2 The reader may be referred to D. Baldi, M. Maggini, M. Marrani (eds.), Le origini toscane della Cosmografia di Matthias Ringmann e Martin Waldseemüller (Firenze: Comitato Vespucci 2015); M. Lehmann, Die Cosmographiae Introductio Matthias Ringmanns und die Weltkarte Martin Waldseemüllers aus dem Jahre 1507: ein Meilenstein frühneuzeitlicher Kartographie (München: Meidenbauer 2010); and O. Duntze, Ein Verleger sucht sein Publikum: die Strassburger Offizin des Matthias Hupfuff (1497/98-1520) (Berlin: de Gruyter 2007), on the Strassburg printer who in 1505 first published Vespucci’s letters edited by Ringmann, in Giocondo’s translation as well as in German.

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References

Electronic reference

Enrico Pasini, “Pietro Omodeo, Amerigo Vespucci: The Historical Context of His Explorations and Scientific ContributionJournal of Interdisciplinary History of Ideas [Online], 17 | 2020, Online since 12 August 2020, connection on 07 February 2026. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/jihi/1242

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Enrico Pasini

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