How did America get its name?
A new way to the Indies?
On October 12, 1492, three Spanish ships, the "Pinta", the "Nina" and the "Santa Maria" approached what is today the island of Guanahani in the Bahamas archipelago. A little later, Christopher Columbus disembarked with a handful of men and named the island "San Salvador" since it was the day of the "Holy Savior" in the Catholic calendar in use in Spain.
The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Illustration chosen by monsieurdefrance.com: Dióscoro Teófilo de la Puebla Tolín - Colección, Museo del Prado / Madrid.
Columbus and his sailors discovered the first "Indians", so named by Christopher Columbus becausehe was convinced that he was in India and that he had succeeded in the bet that convinced Queen Isabella of Castile to finance his expedition: to find a new way to the Indies and their treasures, without passing through Africa, by going straight west from Spain since the earth is round. What he had not imagined was that, even if the earth is round, it is bigger than he had imagined, and between Spain and Asia, there is a whole continent . This, Columbus will never know. He died in 1506 without having understood that he had just discovered America.
Les lettres de Amerigo Vespucci
portrait after his life of Amerigo Vespucci. Italy / Florence / oil on canvas.
A few years after the voyage of Christopher Columbus, a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci (1454 - 1512) took part in many expeditions to the West in the footsteps of Columbus and even a little further, to the coasts of Brazil - although some historians now claim that he did not participate but would have noted down what was brought back - andhe brought back a whole series of observations, attempts at maps... And his writings begin to make the tour of the scholars of the time, well helped by the invention of the printing press a few years earlier. Most of his writings are gathered in a work named "Mundus Nuvus". And this work reaches Lorraine a few years later...
In Lorraine: a duke and scholars
At that time, it was Duke René II of Lorraine and Bar who reigned over this independent duchy bordering the kingdom of France. Passionate about knowledge, the duke, who resided in Nancy, liked to furnish his library and it was quite natural that letters in which Americo Vespucci explained what he had seen were sent to him. The Duke of Lorraine sent this work to the Gymnase Vosgien.
The "Gymnase Vosgien".
Do not imagine sportsmen when we speak about "gymnasium", far from it! This Vosgian gymnasium is a kind oflearned assembly which meets in Saint Dié des Vosges, a city of the duchy of Lorraine. This assembly is made up of several scholars. It is equipped with very modern means for the time, in particular with a printing press. It was these scholars who, in 1507, gave America its name.
The city of Saint Dié des Vosges nowadays. Photo chosen by Monsieurdefrance.com: LACROIX CHRISTINE / Shutterstock.com
It was composed of Vautrin Lud (1448 - 1527) the founder of the Gymnasium, accompanied by his nephew Nicolas Lud, secretary of Duke René II of Lorraine and through whom the letters of Américo Vespucci reached Saint Dié, of Martin Waldseemüller (1470 - 1520), a German cartographer, but also of an Alsatian named Mathias Ringmann (1482 - 1511), a geographer, poet and Helenist, and of the Latinist from Lorraine, Jean Basin de Sandaucourt (? - 1523).
The scientists make a deduction: There is a 4th continent.
Passionate about knowledge, and with the will to update the knowledge in geography of their time, the scholars of the Gymnase Vosgien made a kind of great compilation of all that was known in 1507, their time. They compiled not only what they had just read by Américo Vespucci, but also what had always been known, notably the writings of Ptolemy. And they set out to draw a map of the world. And by observing this map, they deduce several things: first of all, Christopher Columbus did not discover a new route to the Indies, and secondly, I was going to say above all, everything that was brought back from the West by the European explorers leads us to think that it is indeed a brand new continent that was discovered in 1492. It is necessary to name it...
And they call it "America".
Waldseemüller's planisphere was first drawn in Saint Dié des Vosges in 1507. The oldest version is in Washington D.C. The island on the lower left side is America.
In the West, continents have always been named after women and in Latin: Europa, Asia, Africa are the names of the three continents known in 1507 (which correspond to the three wise men who came to the Manger to greet the baby Jesus). The Vosges scholars therefore decided to name this continent after a woman. Rather than Christopher Columbus, who thought he had discovered India from the West, they were inspired by the famous Amerigo Vespucci, who seemed to think, as they did, that what lay to the West was much more than a few islands or even another side of Asia. They also pay tribute to the man whose writings allowed them to make their discovery and they are inspired by his first name: Amerigo is the Italian version of the Latin "Americus" . And here they are, writing the name "America" on the map, the "Waldseemüller map" which will be printed many times. The oldest version is in the Library of Congress of the United States of America, in Washington D.C.
Detail of the planisphere: the word America is drawn on what seems to be a big island. It will take more than 2 centuries before the discovery of the 5th continent.
Saint Dié des Vosges : the place of discovery.
The city of Saint Dié des Vosges still exists, of course. It is located in the Vosges department, in the middle of the mountains, on the banks of a river called the Meurthe. It has about 20 000 inhabitants. No one has forgotten that it is here that America was named. Shortly before the First World War, an American ambassador hailed the city as "America's godmother", a nickname that has stuck. It was the United States that financed its reconstruction after its almost complete destruction by the Nazis in 1944. It is also the World Capital of Geography and the scene of the International Festival of Geography, once a year in October, which brings together geography scholars and allows the dissemination of geography to the general public.
Info / Geo / Web
Saint Dié des Vosges is located in the Vosges department, historical region of Lorraine, administrative region of Grand Est.
By road and train:
The city is about 4H from Paris, 2H from Luxembourg, 1H from Strasbourg.
It has a train station, including a TGV stop.
Websites:
Saint Dié des Vosges Tourist Office
Tourism in the Vosges department.
Sorry for the language mistakes. Our translator is a bit like the Christopher Columbus of foreign languages: he thinks he has found a language and he has discovered something else...
