Amerigo Vespucci (March 9, 1454 - February 22, 1512) was an Italian explorer, financier, navigator and cartographer. At the invitation of king Manuel I of Portugal, Vespucci participated as observer in several voyages that explored the east coast of South America between 1499 and 1502. On the first of these voyages he was aboard the ship that discovered that South America extended much further south than previously thought. The expeditions became widely known in Europe after two accounts attributed to Vespucci were published between 1502 and 1504. In 1507, Martin Waldseem羹ller produced a world map on which he named the new continent America after the feminine Latin version of Vespucci's first name, which is Americus. He died in 1512, at the age of 57, of an unknown cause.