Antoniotto Usodimare or Usus di Mare (1416–1462) was a Genoese trader and explorer in the service of the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator.
Antoniotto Usodimare was a prominent merchant and citizen of the Republic of Genoa, a director of the Genoese mint and a shareholder in the Banco di S. Giorgio.
[1] In some sources, Antoniotto Usodimare is confused with António de Noli, another Genoese explorer in the service of Prince Henry, who, according to the memoirs of Portuguese captain Diogo Gomes, also went to the Gambia River and rediscovered the Cape Verde islands in 1462.
As the interpreters carried on board the Portuguese ships (probably Wolof and Mandinka) could not understand the language of the local peoples this far south, the captains were unable to make any deep inquiries of them.
Upon his return from his first expedition, Antoniotto Usodimare wrote a famous letter, dated December 12, 1455, to his creditors back in Genoa, informing them of his recent journey - albeit laced with great exaggerations and half-truths.
Usodimare claims to have come across a man of Genoese descent along the shores of the Gambia - ostensibly a descendant of the survivors of the 1291 expedition of explorers Vandino and Ugolino Vivaldi.
Usodimare's letter, written in garbled Latin, was discovered around 1800 in a manuscript by Giacomo (Jacob) Gråberg, a Swedish merchant resident in Genoa, in the archives of the city, as part of one of three documents assembled by a 15th-century Genoese cartographer (possibly Barthelemi Pareto) as elements to guide the construction of a new portolan map.