Book Presentation: "Magellanic Epics. Heading to the Moluccas and Other Expeditions"
The expeditions described in this work, some of them little known, reflect, as the title suggests, true epics. The events narrated from these six expeditions, besides recounting heroic feats or grandiose events, share another characteristic: most end in disaster.
Of the 25 ships that made up the fleets of these six expeditions, not counting the eight that Dávila built in America, only one reached the Moluccas.
But what is truly remarkable is how, of those 25 ships bound for the Moluccas, one ended up in Mexico, the first in history to sail from Spain; another was the first to reach Peru; and a third reached 55° South Latitude, the Drake Passage, which now bears the name of the Hoces Sea. A fourth reached Polynesia and probably Australia; another may have ended up in Namibia—those of Diego García and Cabot, who explored, with great effort and losses, the Río de la Plata. Without Pancaldo, Buenos Aires would not have survived, and if the Alcazaba expedition, terrible in its consequences and human losses, had reached the Pacific, Argentina would be a vast, horizontally oriented territory, and Chile would have a different configuration.
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