Distinguished Colombian historian Germ n Arciniegas presented a collection of research documents on the Vespucci family of Florence to the Library on April 27.
Dr. Arciniegas formally turned over the collection at ceremonies at the Library following his lecture on "Los Vespucci de Florencia." The lecture was sponsored by the Library's Columbian Quincentenary Program and Hispanic Division, the Hispanic Cultural Society and the Cultural Center of the InterAmerican Development Bank.
The Arciniegas collection contains documents related to the Vespucci family, from the l4th century through the Renaissance. Amerigo Vespucci was an explorer and the first European to establish that the Americas were a separate landmass from the rest of the world. In 1947 Dr. Arciniegas began research on the Vespucci family to reach a better understanding of the social and intellectual atmosphere that shaped Vespucci's personality. Upon receiving a research grant, he began a 10-year project to cull the rich resources of Florence for Vespucci-related materials. During his research, he uncovered materials on the Medicis, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, Dante, Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo, as well as various members of the Vespucci family.
The Vespucci Collection contains 30 files of transcriptions of 1,000 pages of original Italian documents, more than 1,000 pages of documents translated into English and more than 1,000 pages of research cards on the Vespuccis in Spanish prepared by Dr. Arciniegas. These provide summaries of the most outstanding members of the Vespucci family.
While working with the Vespucci materials, Dr. Arciniegas published three works, Amer¡go y el Nuevo Mundo (Madrid, 1990), El mundo de la bella Simonetta (Bogota, 1990), and El embajador; vida de Guido Antonio, t¡o de Amer¡go Vespucci (Bogota, 1990). He noted during his lecture that much more work on Amer¡go and the other members of the active Vespucci family can be produced from the collection and urged continued research. The material will be housed in the Library's Manuscript Division, which contains other original Vespucci materials in its Hans P. Kraus Collection. The Library of Congress's Rare Book and Special Collections Division also holds a number of very rare imprints of Vespucci.
Dr. Arciniegas is a widely recognized Colombian scholar, diplomat, professor, newspaperman and political figure. Born in 1900, he has held many official posts, including Minister of National Education and Colombian ambassador to Italy, Israel, Venezuela and the Vatican. He has taught at several universities and has been president of the Colombian Academy of History and the Colombian Commission for the 5th Centenary of the Discovery of America. He has written more than 50 books and numerous articles and reviews.
