Praises To Magalhães

"Among the many virtues bestowed upon him, was the most permanent, through tight vicissitudes, his strength to withstand hunger better than all, just as he also knew nautical charts and navigated like no one else in the world." 


Antonio Pigafetta, 1521

"Nothing can be found more admirable in navigation, because they opened the way to find the new orb. Setting out from Seville, in Andalusia, Spain, not far from the noble city of Cadiz and the Strait of Gibraltar, they headed west, from there they doubled south and through the Antarctic Sea headed east. They continued sailing across the immense sea until they returned to their starting point. The Spaniards had turned the whole earth."

Frei Luís de Léon, 1577

"And these two wide seas that want, when passing their borders, to join, the rocks beat and their waves tend but they are prevented from connecting; at last, on this side, the earth cleaves and can communicate here: Magalhães, sir, was the first man who, by opening this path, gave it a name." 


Alonso de Ercilla, 1578

 "It does not seem at all that Fernão de Magalhães is to blame for the fact that Portugal plucked his beards after the discovery of the Straits, since Portugal did not value it, and the fact that he went to look for it by those who valued it, did not deprive him of honour."
Manuel de Faria e Sousa, 1640

"The two most important facts for the economy of the world were maritime feats: rounding the Cape of Good Hope and crossing the Straits of Magalhães and the Pacific to reach the Moluccas. In the hands of the Portuguese and Spaniards was the frontier of knowledge and it was they who taught navigation on the high seas to others." 


Adam Smith, 1776

"This was the undertaking of Magalhães, Portuguese knight whose boldness and great constancy in inquiring this secret and no less happy success in finding it, with eternal memory, put name to the strait that with reason is called Magalhães by its inventor.” 


Martín Fernández de Navarrete, 1837

"The glorious drama of the transatlantic discoveries has an eminent character and Portugal a name revered by modern civilization. 

Magalhães generously paid us the dismay and affront of disowning us, it is true that he served Castile when circumnavigating the globe, but the name of Magalhães has always remained Portuguese and the glory of his navigations will be forever glory also of Portugal." 


José María Latino Coelho, 1856

"Although Magalhães’ enterprise is acknowledged as the greatest ever attempted by any navigator, yet he was deprived of his due fame by the envies which have always existed between the two peoples inhabiting the Peninsula, for the Spaniards could not tolerate being sent by a Portuguese, and the Portuguese have not yet forgiven Magalhães for abandoning them to serve Castile." 


Lord Stanley of Alderley, 1874

"Magalhães reveals to us a character very much in the vanguard of his age; an authentic and disinterested man, awash with the enormous passion of discovery, always seeking the welfare of mankind and the glory of the cross rather than wealth and fame. The vicissitudes of his life were not only noble, but imbued with the spirit of chivalry."


Hezekiah Butterworth, 1899

"Magalhães may be considered one of the most intrepid navigators in history. His gigantic work will remain in the annals of the past among the great audacities of the human spirit."


P. Pablo Pastells, 1920

"Among all the figures and all the routes, my admiration turns to the deeds of the man who, in my opinion, achieved the most extraordinary thing in the history of geographical discoveries: Magalhães. His navigation is perhaps the greatest odyssey in the history of mankind, and it is true that, when I decided to write it, mindful of the reliable documents at my disposal, I had the feeling I was telling something invented, one of those sacred legends of humanity, because nothing is more excellent than a truth that seems unreal!"


Stefan Zweig, 1938