Abstract
The voyages of exploration and discovery during the period of European maritime expansion and the immense amount of information and artefacts they produced about our knowledge of the world have maintained a difficult, if not non-existent, relationship with the main historiographical lines of the history of early modern science. This article attempts to problematize this relationship based on a historical account that seeks to highlight the scientific and institutional mechanisms that made the Magellan-Elcano voyage, the first modern voyage, possible. The text argues that this voyage was the first modern voyage because it allowed the construction of a new scientific and cartographic image of the globe and contributed to our understanding of the world as a global world, altering the foundations on which modern European economic and geographic thought was based. In that sense, the voyage was something extraordinary, but not completely unexpected. It responded to a complex process of expansionary policy and technical development that dated back to the 15th century, which in 1519 was sufficiently articulated to carry out a great feat.
Highlights
INTRODUCTION2019, was the 500th anniversary of the departure of the Magellan-Elcano expedition, the famous voyage that went around the globe, always sailing westwards. 2022 will be five centuries since its return
MAGELLAN’S VOYAGE ANDEARLY MODERN SCIENCELast year, 2019, was the 500th anniversary of the departure of the Magellan-Elcano expedition, the famous voyage that went around the globe, always sailing westwards. 2022 will be five centuries since its return
When we look closely at this view of Seville we have the feeling of being able to hear the daily hustle and bustle of the nautical activity, with its rowing galleys and ships, its shipyards and its hectic commercial and artisanal élan vital
Summary
2019, was the 500th anniversary of the departure of the Magellan-Elcano expedition, the famous voyage that went around the globe, always sailing westwards. 2022 will be five centuries since its return. Pilots and astronomers had to make use, as was usual in transoceanic journeys, of the observation and measurement techniques typical of astronomical navigation, that is, they had to calculate the height of the stars with the astrolabe to determine their latitude. This was a decisive aspect for the modern world (Albuquerque, 1988). It was enough to subtract at 90o the height of the sun at noon from the position of the navigator who was making the observation With this data, the pilots were able to determine their latitude at any point in the planet (Gaspar, 2012a). This was, as Turnbull would say, a scientific task and, without a doubt, a very modern one
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