Laurence Bergreen > Quotes

“Of all the weapons the Europeans brought to the Pacific, guns included, none was more powerful and more capable of effecting lasting change than written language.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Magellan's thirst for glory, under cover of religious zeal, led him fatally astray.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“And so he found himself always in search of the perfect love, always unable to find it or sustain it, and predisposed to reenact his mother's bewildering abandonment of him.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Casanova: The World of a Seductive Genius

“Oceans cover 70 percent of the Earth's surface. Our planet has been misnamed; it is the ocean planet.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“There was one other distraction on the island of Gomera: Doña Beatriz de Bobadilla. Or, as she was known in the Canaries, “Bobadilla the huntress, a woman of rare distinction.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504

“The next day, Magellan gave the order to weigh anchor. The ships fired a salvo of cannon that reverberated among the splendid dark green mountains, gray ravines, and azure glaciers of the strait, and the armada set sail once again, heading west, always west.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“City of Gold. City of Water. City of Faiths. " Quien no ha visto Sevilla, " runs a saying, " no ha visto maravilla ".”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“On September 6, 1522, a battered ship appeared on the horizon … A small pilot boat was dispatched to lead the strange ship over the reefs … The vessel they were guiding into the harbor was manned by a skeleton crew of just eighteen sailors and three captives, all of them severely malnourished. … Their captain was dead, as were the officers, the boatswains, and the pilots; in fact, nearly the entire crew had perished … the ship, Victoria, … had departed three years earlier. No one knew what had become of her … Despite the journey’s hardships, Victoria and her diminished crew accomplished what no other ship had ever done before. By sailing west until they reached the East, and then sailing on in the same direction, they had fulfilled an ambition as old as the human imagination, the first circumnavigation of the globe”
― Laurence Bergreen, Magellan: Over the Edge of the World

“Rather than settling disputes between Portugal and Spain, this arrangement touched off a furious race between the nations to claim new lands and to control the world’s trade routes even as they attempted to shift the line of demarcation to favor one side or the other. The bickering over the line’s location continued as diplomats from both countries convened in the little town of Tordesillas, in northwestern Spain, to work out a compromise.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Vasco da Gama came to believe that he had been inadequately rewarded for his service to the crown.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“That order would prove impossible to enforce, as would another clause prohibiting the use of firearms”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“The two condemned men kneeled at the water’s edge, crying and pleading for mercy as the ships grew smaller and finally vanished over the horizon.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Various news has been current here with regard to them,” he wrote to Philip,”
― Laurence Bergreen, In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Invention of the British Empire

“By royal order, his monthly salary went directly to his wife, Beatriz.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Defecating was even more difficult, calling for a precarious balancing act as a sailor eased himself”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“This was not a job designed to endear him to the other crew members, and the alguacil stood apart from the rest of the crew.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“When he was done, he wiped himself with a length of pitch-covered rope, and then”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“European traders wishing to reach the Spice Islands previously had traveled east rather than west,”
― Laurence Bergreen, In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Invention of the British Empire

“Magellan also received a secret communiqué from his father-in-law, Diogo Barbosa,”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Immediately after the meetings at Valladolid, the potential co-leaders of the expedition presented a list of demands to the crown;”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“The food represented a considerable investment: 1,252,909 maravedís, nearly as much as the cost of the entire fleet,”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“the ship, Victoria, slowly began to make her way along the gently winding Guadalquivir River to Seville, the city from which she had departed three years earlier. No one knew what had become of her since then, and her appearance came as a surprise to those who watched the horizon for sails. Victoria was a ship of mystery, and every gaunt face on her deck was filled with the dark secrets of a prolonged voyage to unknown lands. Despite the journey’s hardships, Victoria and her diminished crew accomplished what no other ship had ever done before. By sailing west until they reached the East, and then sailing on in the same direction, they had fulfilled an ambition as old as the human imagination, the first circumnavigation of the globe.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Everywhere Magellan looked, there seemed to be an idol mocking him; they were even arrayed along the shore, and their appearance was disturbing to European sensibilities”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Pigafetta was not the only diarist on the voyage. Francisco Albo, Trinidad’s pilot, kept a logbook, and some of the surviving sailors gave extensive interviews and depositions on their return to Spain, or wrote their own accounts from memory. The plethora of firsthand impressions of the voyage, combined with the fantastically detailed Spanish records, make it possible to re-create and understand it from a variety of perspectives, ranging from the deeply personal and casually anecdotal to the official and legalistic; royalty and ordinary seamen alike have their voices in this epic of discovery.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Ferdinand and Isabella implored Pope Alexander VI to support Spain’s title to the New World. He responded by issuing papal bulls—solemn edicts—establishing a line of demarcation between Spanish and Portuguese territories around the globe. The line extended from the North Pole to the South Pole. It was located one hundred leagues (about four hundred miles) west of an obscure archipelago known as the Cape Verde Islands, located in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North Africa. Antonio and Bartolomeo da Noli, Genoese navigators sailing for Portugal, had discovered them in 1460, and ever since, the islands had served as an outpost in the Portuguese slave trade.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“he became King of Portugal, King of Naples, King of Sicily, the Duke of Milan,”
― Laurence Bergreen, In Search of a Kingdom: Francis Drake, Elizabeth I, and the Invention of the British Empire

“Magellan, who left nothing to accident, had an assignment for Pigafetta; the young Italian diplomat was to keep a record of the voyage, not the dry, factual pilot’s log, but a more personal, anecdotal, and free-flowing account in the tradition of other popular travel works of the day; these included books by Magellan’s brother-in-law, Duarte Barbosa; Ludovico di Varthema, another Italian visitor to the Indies; and Marco Polo, the most celebrated Italian traveler of them all. Making”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Although it might be expected that pilots worked closely with cosmologists, that was far from the case. Pilots were hired hands who occupied a lower social stratum. Many of them were illiterate and relied on simple charts that delineated familiar coastlines and harbors, as well as on their own instincts regarding wind and water. The cosmologists looked down on pilots as “coarse men” who possessed “little understanding.” The pilots, who risked their lives at sea, were inclined to regard cosmologists as impractical dreamers. Explorers setting out on ocean voyages to distant lands needed the skills of both; they took their inspiration from cosmologists, but they relied on pilots for execution.”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Schöner’s maps closely resembled Behaim’s, and Pigafetta could easily have mistaken one for the other,”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

“Once the horror of the inquisitional catharsis subsided, Mesquita (with Magellan’s blessing)”
― Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe