The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1918-08-10
HOW AMERICA WAS NAMED.

Ii
1t is a matter of some interest and
not a little surprise that he who gave
new world to CASTLE and to Spain"
should not be the one to give his
name to the land he discovered. OF
course, reference is frequently made
to columbia, the Gem Of the Ocean,
the district set aside for our capital
bears his name, British Columbia"
adopts him, half dozen cities in the
United States are "Columbuses, and
Colon" at the gateway of the Pana-
ma canal-the new way to India =
is the Spanish spelling of Columbus.
Still to the world at large and on the
pages of history, our land is known as
America.
This peculiar baptism of new land
not after its disCOyerer, as is usually
done, but according to one who came
after him. is not so much due to acct
dent or rivalry, but to primitive
German map, the first on which Amer
lea is even roughly outlined, and which
was afterwards almost universally
adopted by scholars outside of Spain.
The man after whom our name is
taken was another Italian, born,
strange to relate, the same year as
Columbus, in Florence, and who had
made at least two voyages to the new
world following upon the path OF the
man from Spain-Amerigo VespucCi
In one of his extensively popularized
letters of his trip he claimed to have
been the first man to set foot on the
mainland of what is today the Amer
lean continent. Up until this time
the lands touched by Columbus had
been recorded as the West Indies,
still supposedly a part of India. Only
Balboas passage of the isthmus in
1913 had rectifed this mistake. In the
meantime Vespucci had published his
reports.
Just at this time a printing press
had been set up at the College Of st.
Die, today French Lorraine, and a
German professor of cosmology, Mar
tin Waldseemuller Hylacomylus, pub
lished a chart in his geographical
N,
roughly describing the new continent
of America. He justified his title with
the note: Il do not see why it may
not be permitted to call this fourth
part after Americas, the discOverer,
a man of sagaciOus mind, by the name
of Amerige-that is to say, the land Of
AmeTiCUs-or America, since both
Europe and Asia have a feminine form
of name, from the names of women"
Nespucci himself cannot be blamed
for having Intentionally taken this
credit to his name, for he was a per-
and probably had no such selfish in
tentions. Rather is the result tracea-
Bile to the shOrt-sighted cosmographeTs
outside of Spain in subsequent GEN.
turtles, who could have investigated
the original record in Spain if they
had wished
After holding out for centuries, even
Spain abdiCated to the name America
in the eighteenth century.
On the occasion of the fourth cen
tenary of the discovery of America,
when Leo Mi opened the question OF
the CanoniZation of Columbus, not d
little feeling was created by contrast
ing the names and regulations Of Co.
lumbus and Amerigo. At the time of
the exposition in Chicago the feeling
against AmerigO was so great that
our American Blaine published a book
under the title Of columbus and Co
lumbia''-to vindicate the discoverer
and to reveal to the Americans what
he considered was unworthy credit to
the man after whom they are named.
Even Emerson took occasion to accuse
AmerigO of selfish motives.
But subsequent investigation has
shown that the son of Florence was
in no way maliciously to blame that
his name rather than that of the real
disCOverer should be used to baptize
our land. In accordance with this, now
generally accepted view, when the
New York Numismatic and Archaeo-
logical Society struck it's first medal
for some illustrious benefactor of
America few years ago, it chose as
worthy of this honor the portrait of
Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer, navf-
gator and Catholic son of Florence.
Req. L. j. Kanntr