While poetry and philosophy were thus flourishing, the exact sciences were making considerable progress. It is doubtful whether Fra Luca Paciolo, of Borgo San Sepolcro—who first recalled true geometry to life by his exposition of Euclid, and who exercised so much influence on Leonardo da Vinci—began his labours during the lifetime of Lorenzo. But Paolo del Pozzo Toscanelli, the physician, philosopher, naturalist, and mathematician, commenced his studies as early as the days of Cosimo the Elder. In 1468 he laid down the famous meridian in Sta. Maria del Fiore, primarily for the purpose of ascertaining exactly the solstices in order to fix the festivals of the Church. The importance of the work was appreciated by later generations, and the task was performed more perfectly 300 years afterwards, at the suggestion of La Condamine.[117] It is well known that Toscanelli, who died in 1482, aged seventy-five, exerted great influence on the mind of Christopher Columbus by his calculations of the longitudinal extent of Eastern Asia, which, however, rested chiefly on Marco Polo’s mistaken hypotheses. Long after Toscanelli’s death, Columbus—when upon his first voyage—made use of the map, marked with the latitudes and longitudes, which the former had once sent to Lisbon. It was in the last years of Lorenzo’s life that a man whose name is more famous than his deeds, and who has been the subject of renewed controversy in our own times, left his home to seek a new one in Southern Spain.[118] The family of Amerigo Vespucci, which reckoned among the navigator’s near relatives men of both scientific and political importance, was sometimes on friendly, sometimes on hostile terms with the Medici; but we hear nothing of any personal relation between him and Lorenzo. About the age of forty, Amerigo settled in Seville, where he joined the banking and commercial house of his fellow-countryman Giovanni Berardi. Well furnished with knowledge, to which his learned uncle Giorgio Antonio had contributed not a little, he began a course of practical preparations for the undertaking which led him to the Far West. Not with the Florentines, but with a schoolman of Lorraine, originated the name of the new continent which, as long as the world stands, will recall Amerigo Vespucci. Still the Florentines rightly rejoiced in the fame of their countryman. A later generation has seen the house of his forefathers turned into a hospital, and has inscribed on it in homage to his memory: ‘Ob repertam Americam sui et patriæ nominis illustratori amplificatori orbis terrarum.’ When the news of his discoveries made in the voyage of 1497 reached Florence, the Signoria had the above-named house illuminated for three nights, a distinction they were wont to bestow only on the most conspicuous merit. THIRD PART. _THE FINE ARTS._ CHAPTER XII. COSIMO AND PIERO DE’ MEDICI IN THEIR RELATION TO ART.