Américo Vespucio was a Florentine merchant, explorer and cosmographer, naturalized Castilian in 1505, who participated in at least two voyages of exploration to the New World, a continent that today is called America in his honor. He held important positions in the contracting house of Seville, of which he was appointed major pilot in 1508; but its universal fame is due to two works published under its name between 1503 and 1505: the Mundus Novus and the Letter to Soderini, which attribute a leading role in the Discovery of America and its identification as a new continent. For this reason the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller on his Universalis Cosmographia map of 1507 coined the name "America" in his honor as a designation for the New World.
