Amerigo Vespucci comes from a respectable Florentine family. The merchant was born in the middle of the 15th century. He worked in the service of the Medici’s, the most powerful family in Florence at that time, who sent him to Seville in about 1491. There Vespucci worked in one of their trading firms and in this Spanish inland harbour city encountered shipping.
At the end of the 15th century Amerigos voyages of discovery began. He explored swaths of the East Coast of South America and reported about his journeys in letters. Among others, his document Mundus Novus (New World), from his exploratory trip in 1501, is famous.
Due to the publication of the letters, a German cartographer called the new continent “America“ on his world map from 1507. From that point, Vespucci has been considered the eponym of America. Amerigo Vespucci died on February 22nd, 1512 in Seville.

The Amerigo Vespucci
The ship Amerigo Vespucci has been planned, and it was constructed in the Regal Shipyard of Castellammare di Stabia (Napoli - Italy), 12th May 1930.
It has been launched on 22th February 1931 and it has commissioned on July of the same year. The first motto “For the Native land and the King” has been replaced in the 1946 with “Solid in the fury of the winds and of the events” (exactly: “Saldi nella furia dei venti e degli eventi”), and later, in the 1978, it has been changed once more with “not who begin but who perseveres” (exactly: “Non chi comincia ma quel che persevera”).
The ship Amerigo Vespucci is, instead, still active. It belongs to the Italian Navy, and it is used like school ship for the Cadet, Military Official, during their first year of Naval Academy.
The first Training Cruise was happened on 4th July 1931. The Commander was the Captain Augusto Radicati di Marmorito. Its first travel was directed to North Europe.