Amerigo a Comedy of Errors in History

Did Amerigo Vespucci discover America? He did not. Did he first set foot upon the mainland? He did not. Did he ever claim either of these achievements, or suggest that his name be bestowed upon this mundus novus? A proposal so audacious would never have occurred to him. By what grotesque coincidence, then, did "America" become the name of that new world which should have been called "Columbia"? In this erudite and witty book, Zweig untangles the snarl of accident and forgery that produced so astonishing a denouement. Once on the trail of this grandiose case of mistaken identity, Zweig fills in with rapid, revealing strokes the background against which it took place. He pictures the drugged world of the Middle Ages slowly regaining consciousness, reaching out to embrace all knowledge, to dare all unknown dangers, to grasp to itself the riches of an earth whose scope it had just begun to comprehend. He evaluates Vespucci's actual contribution to that greatest age of discovery, shows how an unsought notoriety was thrust upon him, and how he, the most honest and modest of men, was vilified for generations as a liar and braggart.