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NOTES

Chapter One
1 Whatever may have been the superstitions of the illiterate in Eu-
rope in the fifteenth century, the beliefs which the learned of the time
entertained are a matter of record -- in the published geographies, in
the contemporary maps, in the accounts of travel which were most
popular, and in the classical authors who were held in highest repute.
"The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Maundeville," a French manu-
script which first appeared in 1356, mentions a man who traveled east-
ward from Europe until he reached an island where he heard men
speak his own language; thence he returned westward to Europe and
went into Norway and there recognized that same island.

Chapter Two
1 In the tax list of 1457 it is recorded that Amerigo's father paid 200
florins each for himself and wife and five children. The gold florin
weighed 54 grains, so that 106 florins weighed one pound ( Troy).
Amerigo's father thus paid taxes amounting to more than $7,000 worth
of gold. Considering the purchasing power of the florin, it is apparent
that he was a rich man in 1457.
2 March 9 is the only day in the year ever named as Amerigo's
birthday. It is so given in a record in the Florentine state archives. In
the Florentine calendar each year began, not on January 1, but nearly
three months later, on March 25. Because of this overlapping, a date
before March 25 in the Florentine reckoning, while close to the end of
the Florentine year, was in the first three months of the next year of
our calendar.

There has been error with respect to the year of Amerigo's birth,
because until the end of the nineteenth century certain statements in
old records were generally accepted as correct. These records in docu-
ments still existing in the archives were of two kinds: (1) records to es-
tablish the year in which a citizen would be old enough according to
law to take a public office, and (2) declarations for tax purposes. In one
record "d'Approazione d' etá" (acceptance of age) of the Uffizio delle
Tratte (Libro 2á Eta n. 27, numero antico 33, f. 1161á), is the statement:

-207-

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Publication Information: Book Title: Amerigo Vespucci: Pilot Major. Contributors: Frederick J. Pohl - author. Publisher: Columbia University Press. Place of Publication: New York. Publication Year: 1944. Page Number: 207.
    
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