Magellan, Ferdinand By Almo

Magellan, Ferdinand


Most fearsome of all, the man who would destroy the very world the cartographers had drowned. In his time, by his compatriot and his own king, they treated him as renegade and transfuga, but now in Lisbon they proudly say “his ours”. One, or certainly most important explorer in history, was a faithful man trough which modesty arose. Fact that his Spanish sponsors never shared his sense of mission he found reason for them, like putting boundaries, but he really wanted to circumnavigate globe going westward. Compared to Columbus’s voyage of 8000 miles, Magellan’s was 42000 miles and 22000 of it in unknown waters. That was achievement without parallel. Only few voyages have been fulfilled with so much intrigue, treachery, murder, mutiny, starvation and death in history of sailing, only one out of fleet of five ships managed to complete journey only 16 man out of 265 of them. If there were not of clandestine diary kept by Antonio Pigafetta, Venetian noblema...