and Piero de’ Medici that were placed in
the sacristy of the church of San Lorenzo.
For the Villa Medici at Careggi, Verrocchio
created a sculpture of David, showing the
young man just after his victory over Go-
liath. This work was later sold to the Si-
gnoria of Florence and displayed in the
main square of Venice for several centu-
ries. Verrocchio also was a skilled sculptor
in marble, in which he completed a cel-
ebratedBust of a Young Woman. His grand-
est work was the design for an equestrian
monument of the mercenary Bartolom-
meo Colleoni. This work is known for its
dynamic motion, in which the horse raises
one of its legs, boldly preparing for a
charge into battle. The statue was cast af-
ter Verrocchio’s death and still rises in the
Campo San Giovanni e Paolo in Venice.
SEEALSO: Botticelli, Sandro; Leonardo da
Vinci; sculpture
Vespucci, Amerigo ...........................
(1454–1512)
Italian navigator whose name was given to
the New World. Vespucci was a merchant
of Florence who was hired by the Medici
rulers of the city to work in Seville, Spain.
He supplied essential goods to the expedi-
tions of Christopher Columbus and was
later taken on as a navigator by Alonso
Ojeda. In 1499, Ojeda reached South
America; he and Vespucci separated and
Vespucci sailed south from the Caribbean,
becoming the first European to reach the
mouth of the Amazon River. In 1502 Ves-
pucci joined a second expedition to the
New World, this one sponsored by Portu-
gal and which reached Guanabara Bay, the
present site of Rio de Janeiro, and the Rio
de la Plata, which separates Argentina and
Uruguay. Vespucci developed a new system
for computing longitude and calculated
the circumference of the earth to within
50 miles (80.5km) of the correct figure.
Realizing that South America was an en-
tirely new continent and not an unknown
part of Asia or the East Indies, Vespucci
provided European navigators with a more
accurate concept of the distances facing
them in their voyages of exploration.
An account of these voyages was read
by the German mapmaker Martin Wald-
seemüller, who worked as a mapmaker for
a merchant company of Seville. Wald-
seemüller came to believe, erroneously,
that Vespucci had commanded an expedi-
tion of 1497 that was the first to reach the
mainland of North America, one year be-
fore the same feat had been accomplished
by Christopher Columbus. In 1507 Wald-
seemüller honored Vespucci by using his
first name as a label for the new continent
in hisCosmographiae Introductio, a series
of maps. In the meantime, Vespucci was
honored with the title of pilot major, a
chief navigator for the king of Spain. He
died of malaria that he had caught during
his second voyage.SEEALSO: Columbus, ChristopherVillon, Francois ...............................
(1431– ?)
French poet, whose entire body of work
comprises about three thousand lines of
verse but who is considered one the great-
est French authors of the fifteenth century.
Born in Paris, Villon’s given name was
Francois de Montcorbier or Francois des
Loges. He was taken into the household of
Guillaume de Villon, the canon of Saint
Benoit le Betourne, who educated him.
Villon attended the University of Paris,
earning the degree of master of arts in
1452.
In 1455 Villon killed a priest in a street
brawl and fled Paris. He joined a roving
band of thieves and highwaymen knownVillon, Francois