Adventurer, merchant and mapper of the New World, Amerigo Vespucci's life is fascinating and vivid - his letters, published here in full, reveal his discoveries. Born in Florence in the mid-15th century, Vespucci expressed an interest in the newly-discovered lands across the Atlantic Ocean from an early age. Educated by his uncle, a learned Dominican friar, it was in youth that Vespucci displayed a talent for money matters...