Talk:Ferdinand Magellan/Archive 1

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-- Uhhmmm... we Filipinos hate to hear that Philippines was discovered by MAGELLAN! It's not true. Because when Magellan came here in our country, we already have a culture, religion and beliefs, and Magellan only influenced us. Like: spreading Catholicism/Christianity, using spoon and fork, wearing extravagant clothes and the system of politics.. Could you please edit it... and by the way.... Yeah! Magellan's prior is to reach Moluccas an island of spices near the Philippines and Indonesia.. Im Amiel De Jesus... I edited this... June 20,07 6:00pm



Malayan Indonesia are not by nature a seagoing people. They are mostly agrarian and land lovers. The seagoing people of Indonesia are mostly the bugis. To that matter, I concluded that Enrique are brought by Magellan mostly as an intepreter to Malayan language which are commonly use by native people in the mollucas and spice islands of Indonesia to communicate to the non native Indonesian or foreigners.


-- Juan Sebastian Elcano was a Spaniard. Ms Mulcahy. His nationality was Spaniard but he was born in a region called Basque Country, and because of that he was Basque also.


Interesting, see http://www.1421.tv Stefan 11:08, Jan 3, 2004 (UTC)


To the anon whom I keep reverting:

Wikipedia policy is to make headers lower case except for the first word and any names and places. Also, you keep making the References header one level too low. RickK 19:30, Jun 23, 2004 (UTC)

Magellan's intention was not to circumnavigate the world

Magellan´s intention was not to circumnavigate the globe but to find the western rute to Molucas beyond America. Elcano decided to get back to Spain navigating on to the West

pic moved

File:Sanlucar de Barrameda.gif
The point marked number ten is San Lucar de Barrameda on the delta of the Guadalquivir, where the river meets the Atlantic Ocean. The delta lies west of the Straits of Gibraltar, south of Spain and Portugal, and north of Morocco.

moving pic. article looks better without, and is it neccesary? also, might be copyright violation?

Marlowe 21:33, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)


File:Sanlucar de Barrameda 2.jpg
A map representing the city of Sanlucar de Barrameda on the delta of the Guadalquivir River.


The arrow points to the city of Sanlucar de Barrameda on the delta of the Guadalquivir River, in Andalusia.

Here is an image that might serve as a substitute for the Sanlucar map, if the copyright is still an issue for the Featured articles candidacy. Ancheta Wis 01:06, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Seals

I removed "A 'seawolf', with the head of a calf — the seal."- northern Europe is stuffed with seals, so Magellan's sailors were certainly not the first Europeans to see them. Could it be a manatee? Markalexander100 09:26, 4 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Enrique passage moved here

The following passage did not make any sense in the context of the article, so I moved it here.Marlowe 16:34, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Magellan's Malay interpreter, who was baptized Enrique in Malacca 1511, returned from enslavement by Sumatran slavers to his home islands (some of which were to become named the Philippines), making him the first man to circumnavigate the globe (in multiple voyages). The surviving ships' masters refused to free Enrique, but Enrique escaped his indenture on May 1, with the aid of Rajah Humabon, amid the deaths of almost 30 crewmen. However, Antonio Pigafetta had been making notes about the language, and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage.

Added the point that Magellan's will had provided that Enrique was to be freed upon Magellan's death. This provides the continuity in the paragraph and joins to the ships fleeing westward in the succeeding paragraph. Ancheta Wis 02:42, 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Pls feel free to edit the new article Henry the Black about Enrique.--Jondel 00:45, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Magellan's Will states Enrique is from Malacca

If you will read the Will it explicitly says his slave is from Malacca. There is absolutely no document, firsthand or secondhand, that says Enrique is anywhere from the Philippines. The idea he comes from the Philippines is a blatant disregard of direct evidence and a boneheaded insistence on a total misreading of all primary accounts. Vicente C. de Jesus 11:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Magellan made the Circum-Navigation in first yes - not in one single expedition, but in some voyages. He was in Malaca 10 years before,(documented) not much further in Longitud; - and some sources support his presence in Molucas with Francisco Serrão, after Malaca´s conquest(1511)- Full longitud. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.113.163.220 (talk) 19:03, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Was Magellan ever in the Moluccas?

The notion Magellan reached the Moluccas is one of the enduring myths of the Age of Discovery that owes its persistence to inattention to facts. We can trace this idea exactly to Fr. Bartolome Leonardo de Argensola in Conquista de las islas Molucas, Madrid, 1609. Argensola asserts Magellan was one of three captains of the Antonio d'Abreu expedition to the Spice Islands sometime in December 1511 almost right after Malacca fell to the Portuguese. Argensola writing almost 100 years after the event cites no source or authority for his assertion.

No contemporary historian, writing about the incident mentions Magellan being part of the d'Abreu reconnaissance mission. Joao de Barros, Fernao Lopes de Castanheda, Gaspar Correa, Damiao de Gois, Antonio Galvao, who all had access to official Portuguese documents do not mention Magellan being captain of the third galleon. More to the point, De Gois and Correa, citing official sources, state the third vessel was captained by Simao Afonso Bisagudo (Chronica de D. Manoel, 3ra parte, cap. XXV, fol. 51), as cited by F.H.H. Guillemard, The Life of Ferdinand Magellan and the First Circumnavigation of the Globe, 1480-1521, page 67. --Vic (talk) 01:57, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

So Magellan never got to the Spice Islands and never got to round the world. --Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 13:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Vandalism

I just clicked here and all the page had written was: "hi." Has this happened before on this page, or is it just some random schmuck??? D.E. Cottrell 31 Aug 2004 (UTC)

A history of vandalism has occurred on this page, mostly large amounts of copy-pasted text to the effect of "DIE ADMINZ DIE" or something similarly catchy. Seems like it's been getting taken care of pretty fast due to the fact that it's today's featured article. - Matthew Cieplak (not logged in, sorry) 30 August, 10:54PM PST

Circumnavigation

WOW! I didn't know there was soo much discussion here about the circumnavigation. I didn't think it was such a big deal. I created the Henry the Black page. I hope that not too much imbrolgios occur. In wikipedia spirit, pls feel free to edit the page. BTW Nestor Enriquez, supposedly his descendant, might be useful. Link at the bottom.--Jondel 00:13, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Nestor Enriquez no longer says Enrique is from Cebu

If you read Mr. Enriquez's email message he clearly states he no longer thinks Enrique is from Cebu. Mr. Enriquez is also using the word "descendant" in a very literary sense. He is from Cavite not Cebu in Central Philippines. This is in the same sense as when I will claim Magellan is a kin because he and I belong to the human race. Vicente C. de Jesus 11:25, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Hernando -> Fernando Magellan.

The original message I wanted to add until I saw the discussion above. Hi, if you click on the Spanish page it says Hernando. Regards--Jondel 00:01, 15 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That´s how the spanish call him. He was portuguese, and his name is Fernão or Fernando.

Requesting pictures

Hi all, this is a student talking so i'll keep the rest of my identity secret. I am posting this headline asking all people to put many extra images on the website. I am doing a project in school where I do an interveiw with Magellan, and I want good pictures to put in. I see that there are already very good ones, so keep up the good work! if you have any replies type in this discussion here. --207.62.246.1 23:10, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Ships and captains according to the 107 link

  • Trinidad (tonnage 110, crew 55) Faleiro - Magellan's flagship
  • San Antonio (tonnage 120, crew 60) Juan de Cartegena
  • Concepcion (tonnage 90, crew 45) Gaspar de Quesada
  • Victoria (tonnage 85, crew 42) Luis de Mendoza (succeeded by Elcano)
  • Santiago (tonnage 75, crew 32) Juan Serrano

This information was formerly in a table, and the names have been switched. The new 107 link seems to straighten out the names. Ancheta Wis 03:07, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

The Concepcion

The article doesn't say exactly when the Concepcion was abandoned, but describes the event after the arrival in the Moluccas in November 1521. It also says that Concepcion's cargo of spices was transferred to the other two ships. Bergreen, however, in the book cited in the article, says that the surviving crew members burned Concepcion soon after the disastrous encounters in the Philippines, on May 2, 1521, at a time when the expedition had done some advantageous trading for gold but had not yet found any spices. Is this point unclear from the records? Is there any authority giving a later date than May 2 for the abandonment of Concepcion? JamesMLane 08:46, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

No one has pointed to any authority for this version, so I'm changing it to conform to Bergreen's account. JamesMLane 11:47, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. Further reading is not the same thing as proper references. Further reading could list works about the topic that were not ever consulted by the page authors. If some of the works listed in the further reading section were used to add or check material in the article, please list them in a references section instead. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 19:58, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)

I haven't edited this article much, but I made a couple changes based on what was in Bergreen's book, so I moved that book from "Further reading" into a new "References" section. JamesMLane 18:48, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

time zones 1522

I arrive here fresh from reading "A World Lit Only by Fire" by Wm Manchester.

Anchored off the Cape Verde Islands near the end of the voyage, the shore party disputed the local Portuguese' statement of the date as Thursday July 10, 1522; by Pigafetta's (ship's log keeper) reckoning the date was July 9, Wednesday. No one had thought about the loss of a day resulting from the westward circumnavigation, and evidently there was quite a tangle in resolving this problem,encountered for the first time in history.

However, Manchester lapses, I'm sure, when he claims this phenomenon supports the Copernican theory. The same loss of a day would result from circumnavigating a stationary globe circuited daily by an orbiting sun.

Bergreen also reports this discrepancy, although I don't remember his account as conveying a sense of "quite a tangle" to resolve it. From the point of view of the people on land, there wouldn't be much of a problem. They knew what day it was, and weren't going to be too concerned if one ship shows up, with eighteen half-starved men who are a little vague about their origins, and their log is off by one day. I don't remember whether the crew figured it out at the time or if the mystery wasn't resolved until they returned to Spain. JamesMLane 19:34, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Magellan Trip to Ternate

Magellan was noted to one of Alfons Albuquerque's captain under Fransisco Serrao's expedition to the Mollucas on the late 1510. From there, he renounce his Portuguese citizenship and offer his service to the King of Spain.

It should be noted that although he is a Portuguese and Portuguese monopolize the clove trade of Ternate, which are not satisfied by neighbouring tidore. The route to the west are one way to avoid the Portuguese blockade.

Ternate (mostly) with surrounding Tidore, Bacan and Jailolo are the origin of the clove trees. We still could see today a 400 years old clove tree. As history noted, around 1603, when the Portuguese left Ternate, they burned all the clove trees so the Dutch successors doesn't get the clove trees. But one tree survive and known today as Cengkeh Tua or Cengkeh Rate (on ternate island about 17km upward from the city of ternate), you still can get seeds from this one tree today.

Eventually, Magellan's idea is to bypass the Portuguese and collect the cloves without the Portuguese realizing it.

Antonio d'Abreu expedition to Banda and the Moluccas

The reconnaissance squadron to Banda and the Moluccas was headed by Antonio d'Abreu, who commanded one of three galleons. The other two captains were Francisco Serrano, the close friend of Magellan, and Simao Afonso Bisagudo.

The expedition left Malacca either late November of early December 1511, not 1510. It will be recalled the Portuguese seaborne power under Afonso de Albuquerque reached Malacca on July 1, 1511 and captured the city after a six-week battle. Governor Albuquerque ordered the d'Abreau expedition right after sending missions to Burma and Thailand.

The claim Magellan was with this expedition is the sole basis for the notion he had circumnavigated the globe when he reached in 1521 Cebu at 124° E longitude. If Magellan was with the d'Abreau squadron, he was able to reach Ambon at longitude 128° E of Greenwich and Banda at 130° E. Thus his arrival at Cebu would have meant--IF he was in the d'Abreau team, and he was not--his furthest west in 1521 was four to six degrees of longitude farther than Banda or Ambon.

Magellan did not go farther than Malacca at 101° E. He was short by 23 degrees of longitude for him to have been able to cirumnavigate the globe. --Vic (talk) 02:38, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

distance

From article:

The extent of the Earth — their voyage was '14,460 leagues' (or 69,000 km) (or 42,875 m).

If using Spanish Leagues, or 4.2 km, then 14460 leagues would be 60732 km. If using English Leagues, or 5.56 km, that would be 80398 km. Neither of these is 69000 km. Further, 69000 km is not 42875 m, nor 42875 km. What's the deal? 24.226.29.109 07:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Ferdinand Magellan wasn't the fist man in circumnavigating the glove beacause hu died befor get it. The firs man in circumnavigating the glove was his subordinate, the spanish sailor Juan Sebastian Elcano.

Magellan made the Circum-Navigation in first yes - not in one single expedition, but in some voyages. He was in Malaca 10 years before,(documented) not much further in Longitud; - and some sources support his presence in Molucas with Francisco Serrão, after Malaca´s conquest(1511)- Full longitud - all Circum-Navigation. Because this Pigafetta support that Magellan was the First Man to circumnavigating the World(when he wrote about his "Genius"). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.113.163.220 (talk) 19:15, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

actually it was Henry the Black. Magalhães 10:05, 6 January 2006 (UTC)

Nationality

" Magellan formally renounced his nationality, and went to offer his services to the court of Spain, changing his name from "Fernão de Magalhães" to "Hernando de Magallanes"."

Can you tell which was the document he signed resigning his nationality? I never heard this, could you provide references on this subject? Thanks.


The text of the "Real Provisión" says: "Doña Juana y Don Carlos su hijo por la gracia de Dios Reina e Rey de Castilla, etc. Por cuanto nos habemos mandado tomar cierto asiento e concierto con vos el Bachiller Ruy Falero e Fernando de Magallanes, Caballeros naturales del Reino de Portugal, para que vais a descubrir por el mar[...]".

[1]http://www.scielo.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0716-54552000002200004&script=sci_arttext&tlng=es


The text was corrected please give sources if you do not agree. Notice that Columbo also worked for the King of Castilla and no one says he changed his nationality and name spelling.
What a mess!! Was Magellan Portuguese or a Spaniard when he left for his journey?What documents he signed that changed his nationality?

That quotation doesn´t proves that he changed his nationality. It only says his name and that he is natural from Portugal.

Citations

Several really really bad citations were added to the article in a last ditch effort to stave off featured article removal. I notice these haven't been deleted since. Please do so now, Wikipedia really shouldn't cite cheathouse.com etc. For a full explanation see my comment here. Mikker (...) 02:50, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

References requiring purchase

Under Footnotes the first one links you to a "Biography of Ferdinand Magellan" at Cheathouse.com. I wasn't able to find a good rule relating to this, but I'm questioning whether there should be links to references that require a purchase to get the information.

Did Ferdinand Magellan name the Pacific Ocean? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.200.144.195 (talk) 22:10, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes. See the end of Ferdinand Magellan#Journey: "Magellan named the waters the Mar Pacifico (Pacific Ocean) because of its apparent stillness." — Joe Kress 07:38, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

"He was the first European to see a South American Native American tribe"

This is incorrect. There were Spanish colonies in Panama and Colombian coast at that time.

  • Removed that reference. This is blatantly incorrect since Pedro Álvares Cabral and several other portuguese navigators made contact to south american native americans way before Magellan.
  • Also removed "After the encounter he brought a few to the Philippines as slaves." He actually took only one of them, which died before reaching the Philippines.

Infamous quotation

I have found the following quotation attributed to Magellan: "The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church."

Even if it's not really his quote, the entry should mention this common misconception. 24.186.209.222 02:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Were Magellan and his crew the first Europeans to reach the Philippine Archipelago?

There are two documents that contradict this view. One is "A Treatise on the Moluccas" (Historia Das Molucas by Antonio Galvão) translated and annotated by Hubert Th. M. Jacobs, S.J., Jesuit Historical Institute, Rome, 1971. The other is the eyewitness account on the Magellan voyage by the Genoese Pilot (The Genoese Pilot's Account of Magellan's Voyage, pp. 1-29, in Lord Stanley of Alderley's book, The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan, Hakluyt, 1874).

Right after the sacking of Malacca by the Portuguese, Viceroy of India Afonso de Albuquerque lost no time and immediately sent three ships to find the fabled Spice Islands, the Moluccas. One ship, Santa Catarina, was under Antonio d'Abreu, captain of the expedition, Sabaia under Francisco Serrão, and a caravel under Simão Afonso Bisagudo. (Bartolomé de Leonardo y Argensola in Conquista de las Islas Malucas al Rey Felipe II (Madrid 1609) citing no source or authority claims Magellan captained the third ship, which is the basis for the notion the Portuguese condotierre of the seas had circumnavigated the world.) Galvão, Portuguese governor of the Moluccas, 1536-1540, the only contemporary Portuguese historian to use Islas de San Lazaro, the name Magellan gave to the Philippines, relates at Banda the Abreu expedition had to buy a junk to replace Sabaia which had become too unseaworthy and had to be abandoned earlier. After being load with nutmeg, mace and clove the ships sailed back around Dec. 1512 to Malacca. A storm separated Francisco Serrão's ship from the others and this too got wrecked on a reef at Lucipara Island where Serrano and nine Portuguese companions were able to seize the boats of the Badjaos of Sulu--also named Selat--who had landed on the island. From here they European stragglers were brought to Sulu where their presence was immediately known to the warring kings of Ternate and Tidore. King Boleise (Bajan Sirullah) of Ternate sent nine cora-coras under the command of the king's brother, Kuliba, to invite Serrano and companions to Ternate. The motivation of Boleise was linked to the rivalry with the ruler of Tidore, Almansur. The Portuguese--with their coats of mail--had acquired the reputation as invincible warriors, "iron men" who would be invaluable allies. They were brought to Ternate where Serrão permanently resided until his death in 1521, ahead of his friend, Ferdinand Magellan, who owed much of his knowledge of the Moluccas and surrounding areas from his correspondence with Serrão.

On Monday, March 18, 1521 while Magellan's fleet was anchored at Homonhon, Samar, a boat with nine men from a nearby island, Suluan, at 10°45' N and 125° 49' E, came to visit the European strangers. Here's the Genoese Pilot's story of this encounter: Whilst they were thus anchored at this island, there came to them two paraos, and brought them fowls and cocoa nuts, and told them that they had already seen there other men like them..." (P. 11 in Stanley's book).

This information must have alarmed Magellan since it would mean that by virtue of an earlier "discovery" [as the Europeans termed their arrival in lands seen by them for the first time], their presence would constitute trespassing into Portuguese territory. It would have meant his going west to be able to claim the Spice Islands for Spain was for nothing. His dream had become a nightmare. To suppress this terrible truth, Magellan immediately dismissed this and made it known the Suluans were referring to "Lequios or Mogores; a nation of people who have this name, or Chiis..." But the Suluans had had trade and commerce with the Chinese for centuries before this, it's reasonable to assume they could differenciate between the "squinty-eyed" Chinese from the "doe-eyed" Europeans. They surely would know the pigtailed Asian in his "kung fu-style" clothing from the metal-helmeted "iron-men."

As far as I can gather this correlation of Galvão's story of Serrão's brief visit to Sulu and the Genoese Pilot's account of the Suluan's testimony they had already seen men who looked like the Europeans of Magellan's fleet has never been attempted before. This puts a new light into the Magellan's behavior after this incident which most historians remark as irrational and, at best, that of a religious zealot. It may just be that he had been crushed by the knowledge his expedition was a total failure viewed against the main aim of claiming the Spice Islands for Spain. His irrational behavior may in fact be the wild gesticulation of a mortally wounded man whose whole purpose in life had come to naught. Vicente C. de Jesus 11:15, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this approach as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 18:43, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

A huge error.

Hi,

I am new to Wikipedia, I saw a huge error in the Ferdinand Magellan page. Probably somebody place this text here intentionally.

Check this out:

"He ran around killing natives singing "B.Y.O.B" by System of a Down and had a heart attack. he fell and and cast retribution when he died, killing the rest of the natives. his prayer is now lvl 99, and he has a prayer skill cape."

How can we correct this ???

Is there a way to prevent this from happening ?

Changocc 17:29, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

It looks like run-of-the-mill vandalism. If you see such, you can edit the page to remove the vandalism or you can revert it as explained in Help:Reverting. -- Donald Albury 13:14, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Professional Scientists?

>He had professional scientists on the trip to help determine the species of some of the animals he found on his voyage.

It is my understanding that there was barely even a notion of 'science' in Europe in 1520, let alone any 'professional scientists'. There may have been a few people doing things that we recognize today as scientific research but even then they would be few and far between. As well, the biological concept of 'species' and the sort of work implied here would not have been done until atleast the 18th century, and is more typical of 19th naturalists like Darwin. This statement is confusing and misleading, even if there is some truth to which it refers. It needs to be reworded at the very least. I'll wait to see if anyone with more knowledge of this topic agrees or disagrees before changing anything. Aglie 22:46, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Inaccuracy

Hi. I just read the Magellan article and I couldn't help but notice that you're making it seem like Filipinos killed him because they were barbaric. They are not and they never were. They fought and killed him because they were defending themselves. He was angry at them and declared war on them because they refused christianity and refused to be controlled by the King of Spain, which was what he wanted. They wanted to be free. It was his own fault he died. 80.192.53.79 13:37, 27 December 2006 (UTC)rea

Maybe you could cite the Filipinos' account of the event?
Oh right, they didn't leave any account. Because they were illiterate.
--141.157.83.68 (talk) 09:09, 26 March 2008 (UTC)
Articles in Wikipedia are supposed to te be written from a neutral point of view. Another requirement is that everything in an article be verifiable. If you know of reliable sources that support a more neutral account of Magellan's death, please edit the article, citing the sources. -- Donald Albury 22:19, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

Stupid question

Where was he buried? Or was his body not found/retrieved? --Howard the Duck 10:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

4 Children

Did he really have 4 kids in morrocco? Sounds odd... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.45.81.132 (talk) 18:47, 31 March 2007 (UTC).

table of contents and image

the image obstructs the table of contents and should be rearranged

Magellan and the Animaniacs

Does it serve any purpose to state that the voyage of Magellan was parodied by the Animaniacs?67.34.15.125 00:42, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

How Many Men on the Voyage?

"On this day..." says 265. This article says 270. Can we agree on a number?--Shishigashira 02:54, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

too much credit

ferdinand magellan got more credit then deserved. he was DEAD when his crew came back, for heavens sake! his crew deserves the glory, but they ended up the unimportant nameless characters! --Kmbsweetie 19:19, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

i disagree i think he got very good credit for every thing he did but WHATEVER!

                                                JUST ENOUGH CREDIT.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.68.66.181 (talk) 16:15, 4 October 2007 (UTC) 

Magellan the greatest mariner, names of crewmembers

Magellan is renowned for being the greatest explorer of the Age of Sail. "As a mariner and navigator," according to Admiral Samuel Eliot Morison, foremost biographer in English of Christopher Columbus, "[Magellan] was unsurpassed."

And in the words of Edward G. Bourne: "There was none of the prophetic mysticism of Columbus in the makeup of the great Portuguese. Magellan was distinctly a man of action, instant, resolute, enduring...l.The first navigation of the Strait of Magellan was a far more difficult problem of seamanship than crossing the Atlantic....Columbus's voyage was over in thirty-five days; but Magellan's had been gone a year and weathered a subarctic winter before the real task began--the voyage over a trackless waste of waters exactly three times as long as the first crossing of the Atlantic....Magellan is to be ranked as the first navigator of ancient or modern times, and his voyage the greatest single human achievement on the sea." (Samuel Eliot Morison, The European Discovery of America, The Southern Voyages 1492-1616, New York, 1974, page 320.)

The Magellan fleet's roster of only 241 men can be found in Tim Joyner's biography, Magellan, pp. 252-263. It is largely based on the list given by Jose Toribio Medina in El Descubrimiento del Oceano Pacifico: Vasco Nunez Balboa, Hernando Magallanes y Sus Companeros, Santiago, Chile: 1920. Biographical sketches of a number of the fleet's crew can also be found at Joyner's, pp. 266-293, again based on J.T. Medina's work.

The precise number of the fleet's crewmembers is undetermined. Estimates vary from 260 to 270. When the Armada de Molucca made a stop at the Canary Islands, Magellan recruited a few more men who have remained anonymous. --122.2.155.64 (talk) 06:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)--Vic (talk) 06:07, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

"Shadow of the moon" quote

I have often heard the following quote attributed to Magellan:

A Google search shows numerous sites attributing this to Magellan. Other sites (such as [2]) claim that this quote is apocryphal. I found a definite reference to this quote in the works of Robert G. Ingersoll, so if this attribution is wrong, the error goes back well over a century. (See [3]). One site ([4]) suggests that Ingersoll was in fact the author of this quote. In any case, it is well enough known (and so commonly attached to Magellan's name) that it should be included in the article, along with an explanation of where it might have originated. As an anonymous user, I currently cannot do this. 76.97.163.77 03:43, 10 October 2007 (UTC)

"Shadow of the moon" quote is a fabrication of Ingersoll

As I explain in my notes at Wikiquote and in the article on the Wikipedia article on Portugal, the famous quote which is usually found in sites of atheists, agnostics, freethinkers, and believers in the non-existence of a deity, cannot be traced beyond Robert Green Ingersoll.Ingersoll, who as far as I know was not a Magellan scholar or even a dilettante in navigation history, obviously didn't know Magellan. There is nothing in Magellan's life that would suggest he was at any time an agnostic or freethinker or that he was ever wracked by doubts about the validity of his religion and the Church; to be precise, he was a very religious person who at the climax of his life was in fact somewhat fanatical about his religion.

It is also a persistent myth that the sphericity of the Earth was not known. For thousands of years before Magellan it was already known by educated minds, and one can trace learned writings all the way back to the classical Greeks including Aristotle. As late as the 15th century, Michael of Rhodes wrote a treatise on the roundness of Earth. What was debated on was the exact circumference of the globe. A vast number of the illiterates of course believed in a flat earth, a belief that is even held on very dearly today by a few troglodytes.

The Church was divided between the very learned who wrote on the Earth's sphericity and the less learned who thought it was flat. The Church therefore never pronounced any dogma on this matter. What it proclaimed as dogma was the notion Earth was center of the Universe. It has of course dropped this dogma. --Vic (talk) 06:22, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

New Source

There's a new book on Magellan, in French: Michel Chandeigne (ed.), Le Voyage de Magellan (1519-1522) - La relation d"Antonio Pigafetta & autres témoignages, Paris, Éd. Chandeigne - Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2007. It goes back and reviews a lot of original sources and contradicts many of the assumptions made all these centuries about Magellan and his journey. The book's contributions and findings must be added to the article. I'll try to do some... The Ogre (talk) 12:18, 31 January 2008 (UTC)

You're right, it's a brilliant edition (I have it in my library). I just added a precision at the end of the intro about the number of real survivors of the circumnavigation. I apologize if it's not written in correct english... DocteurCosmos (talk) 14:20, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

FAKE

he is a liar the phillipines were already discovered by the natives! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Benjin15 (talkcontribs) 18:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

And Neptune was already discovered by a bunch of asteroids. What's your point?--141.157.111.97 (talk) 09:01, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

He was the first european there, which is extremely significant. We say Columbus discovered America, right? Oh, and natives ≠ Non-living space rocks.75.7.28.82 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:44, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

All the meridians

...he became one of the first individuals to cross all the meridians of the globe.

I imagine this could be true if he had previous sailed to the Maluku Islands, but the article only says he sailed to India. A little more info here please? Pfly (talk) 00:59, 29 March 2008 (UTC)

Martino de Judicibus

As agreed in Martino's page, I merged Martino de Judicibus in the Ferdinand Magellan page. I removed most of the text from Martin article leaving only the information we know by sure. On the other hand, in Martin de Judicibus articles there are pieces of information and images that could be useful to create an article about the trip itself. The idea would be to simplify the Magellan article too moving most of text to an article about the trip around the world, and leaving in the biographies of people who participated only the information about those people. Comments? Suggestions?--Dejudicibus (talk) 14:54, 29 March 2008 (UTC) It was very bad infoMedia:asdasdafwefaefdasdafdsafasf —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.253.27.91 (talk) 07:52, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

I actually don't think he's important enough to warrant a section to himself. Maybe an article with information about all the survivors? 75.7.28.82 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 00:41, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

We know very few or nothing about the othersurvivors, apart El Cano and Pigafetta. What we know about Martino is the result of researches of few historians. Most of the others are lost in the past. It is very difficult to find documents of that period. Some are in the Archive of Seville. Others in Vatican.--Dejudicibus (talk) 13:55, 9 June 2008 (UTC)

del Cano vs Elcano

I understand that they are simply spelling variants and both are acceptable, but it seems inconsistent to me to say "Sebastian del Cano" in the paragraph about the mutiny ("Journey" section) and "Juan Sebastián Elcano" everywhere else. If there are no objections, I'll change the former to the latter. Incidentally, can anyone tell me how long I'm supposed to wait? --Imaginary Pi Slicer (talk) 06:01, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

No objection. Is that rapid enough ? ;-) DocteurCosmos (talk) 14:52, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Change of Wording - Survivors

Under the "Survivors" heading, it might be a good idea to update the wording of the first sentence to flow better. Here's my suggestion:

Original: When Victoria, the only surviving ship, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth. On board the small ship only 18 men out of the original 237 men survived.

Modified: When Victoria, the only surviving ship, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 out of the original 237 men still lived.

Thanks! Bkonkle (talk) 13:06, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Yours is better...but actually, neither one is entirely accurate. "Only 18 men were on board" would be optimal, because a handful of other crewmen had survived and ultimately reached Europe via other ships. --Xiaphias (talk) 09:53, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Ferdinand Magellan/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Could use some more inline citations. Needs a good copyedit-- found instances where people were mentioned for the first time with just their last name and no context, who are they? -- also places where the wording is awkward or even words missing. Trivia items need to be worked into prose or removed. Also, do we know why they turned on him and killed him? Just states that they did, but not why the change of heart. Also sometimes not clear who's directing events "he was sent" -- who sent him? The Portugese crown? --plange 04:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Last edited at 04:25, 13 October 2006 (UTC). Substituted at 20:26, 3 May 2016 (UTC)