Go back. More than 500 years ago, in 1519, the Portuguese Fernand de Magellan orchestrated a large-scale expedition. After gathering 237 men and loading the five ships of his fleet with food, he cast off for Indonesia and its Spice Islands – now called the Moluccas and at the time the cradle of the clove, which was worth gold in Europe – in order to offer them to Spain.
Unlike his contemporaries who took the traditional spice route to get there, the explorer made the crazy bet of crossing the tumultuous Atlantic Ocean and reaching the archipelago coveted by the west. In summary: succeed where Christopher Columbus failed and reach the East through the West. Its crew will thus be the first to sail to latitudes never before reached to “pass to the other side”.
The documentary series of François de Riberolles The extraordinary journey of Magellan therefore proposes to return to the adventures of this outstanding navigator. Thanks to several episodes that combine a captivating story, animated images and enriching interviews, we learn in particular that if this detailed information has reached us, it is because the writer Antonio Pigafetta was hired by Magellan to write the chronicle of his quest for the clove tree and, at the same time, make it a legend. Pigafetta, with his ethnographic and naturalistic gaze, will be one of the first to record the daily life of the indigenous peoples of America and to describe the Roaring Forties, these latitudes of the southern hemisphere feared by sailors because of their winds. violent.
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