Стефан Цвейг (Stefan Zweig)ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
While this book was still on the presses, there began to appear in Lisbon the documentary work on Magellan in the Portuguese language which had been for years in preparation. Only the first portions could be examined, but I must thank the honoured writer, the Visconde de Lagoa, for the information about it which he was so kind as to give me personally. I am equally indebted to the Visconde Carnaxide in Buenos Aires for special stimulation. Active assistance was rendered me by Dr. Leo Bagrow in the selection of illustrations, by Dr. Christine Rohr in the translation of the documents to be found in the Appendix, and not least by Professor Eugen Oberhummer of Vienna, leading expert on the age of discovery, who took an active interest in this work even before the final preparations for printing it.
~S. Z.
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The name of the first man who undertook to circumnavigate the globe has come down to us in various forms. In Portuguese documents the great navigator is sometimes spoken of as FERNAO DE MACALHAIS, sometimes as FERNAO DE MAGALHAES; after entering the Spanish service, he signed documents alternately MAGHALLANES and MAGHELLANES, while the cartographers latinized this Spanish form as MAGELLANUS. Not wishing to perplex my readers with needless variations, I have decided to use throughout the semi-latinized form, MAGELLAN, which has long had international currency. We have the precedent of COLUMBUS, who is rarely spoken of as CRISTOFORO COLOMBO or as CRISTOBAL COLON. Almost invariably, too, I describe by the more familiar name of CHARLES V the Habsburg ruler who made MAGELLAN'S voyage possible, although during the opening years of my narrative he had not yet been crowned Holy Roman Emperor, and was merely KING CHARLES I of Spain.