Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

These celestial blotches consisted of countless suns and universes that people of Magellan’s time could not have conceived because it was still believed that all heavenly bodies revolved around the earth.

At the time of its founding, the Casa de Contratación was housed near the Seville shipyards, in the Atarazanas, or arsenal, but to emphasize its authority, Queen Isabella moved it to the royal palace itself, the Alcázar Real.

The ships picked up speed, and the coastline began to recede; there was no turning back now. It would sustain them all, or it would destroy them all. To reach his goal, Magellan would have to master both the great Ocean Sea and a sea of ignorance.

Pliny’s chapters on humankind contained a potent mixture of fact and fantasy. He wrote of a tribe known as the Arimaspi, “a people known for having one eye in the middle of the forehead.”

Greek concept of autopsis, seeing for one’s self (and the origin of our word “autopsy”).

Fear was his most important means of motivating his men; they became more afraid of Magellan than the hazards of the sea.

terra ulterior incog.—in other words, “the land that has been hitherto unknown.”

experience and connections, including his advantageous

Since leaving the western mouth of the strait, Magellan had traveled more than seven thousand miles without interruption: the longest ocean voyage recorded until that time.

“A man who carried on his shoulders so momentous a business had no need to test his strength,” Ginés de Mafra observed. “From victory . . . he would benefit little; and from the opposite, the Armada, which was more important, would be set at risk.”