The Magellan expedition sails from Sanlúcar
Five ships and roughly 270 men left Sanlúcar de Barrameda under Ferdinand Magellan, sailing for Castile on the proposition that the Spice Islands lay on the Castilian side of the Tordesillas antimeridian and could be reached by sailing west. The expedition was therefore not conceived as a circumnavigation at all: it was a commercial route-finding venture premised on a legal argument about a line no one could locate.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães) · person · Portugal · not located
- The Moluccas (Maluku Islands) · region · Indonesia
- Celestial navigation (latitude sailing) · technology · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo
The principal contemporary narrative of the 1519–1522 circumnavigation: the departure, the strait, the Pacific crossing, Magellan's death at Mactan and the Victoria's return. V55 verification basis: NOT consulted in this session. Dates and the survivor count attributed to it in this pack are from the author's knowledge of the standard editions and require checking. Pigafetta is a partisan witness, favourable to Magellan and hostile to Elcano, which a reader should weigh.
manuscript; surviving copies include those at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana and the Beinecke Library · c. 1524–1525 · Partly verified
Antonio Pigafetta, Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo, the eyewitness account of the Magellan–Elcano expedition by a survivor of the voyage
Recorded on Ferdinand Magellan (Fernão de Magalhães)
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- The Treaty of Zaragoza settles the Moluccas by sale · 1529-04-22
- The Victoria completes the first circumnavigation · 1522-09-06
- Magellan is killed at Mactan · 1521-04-27
- Albuquerque takes Malacca · 1511-08
- The Treaty of Tordesillas divides the ocean · 1494-06-07