The first fruit of my doctoral research on 16th-century mapmaker Juan Vespucci has just been published in the journal Imago Mundi: ‘No, Mapmaker Juan Vespucci Was Not a Medici Spy‘. If you do not have free access via your institution and would like to read the full text, please let me know via comment or email.
Abstract
Three decades ago, a Spanish historian whom I deeply respect, Consuelo Varela, found at the Archivio di Stato in Florence, Italy several letters sent in 1514 by Giovanni (or ‘Johannes’) Vespucci from Spain to Lorenzo de’ Medici, and this led her to conclude that Juan Vespucci, the nephew of famous Amerigo and pilot at the Casa de la Contratación of Seville, had worked as a spy for the Medici.
As I started to work on my thesis, my first goal was decipher and transcribe those letters, hoping to find new information about the Casa de la Contratación’s mapmaking or about Spanish maritime expeditions. I was however disappointed to see that the letters only talked about military alliances and royal weddings. I then realized that the dates did not make sense: over the period in which several letters were signed, Juan Vespucci was at sea, sailing to Central America.
Solving this apparent mystery was possible thanks to recent scholarship on less well-known members of the Vespucci clan. I can now safely conclude that there is no reason to accuse Juan Vespucci of having spied for the Medici family.
History and Maps 