Martin Behaim - Before Magellan

Before Magellan

During the Age of Exploration, it was common for the crown of Portugal to buy nautical charts from various sources, even if they were not accurate or showed unknown and mythic regions. Consequently, it is likely that during his familiarity with the Crown, that King John II would have purchased maps and charts from Martin Behaim, which might have depicted mysterious passages in an unknown land. This may account for the confusion caused by the story of Magellan's exploration of the southern route to the Pacific. Antonio Pigafetta, an Italian writer who accompanied Ferdinand Magellan notes that Magellan would have a partial drawing of the channel, analyzing it even before they had reached land. A second chart, as Pigafetta alleges, would have been memorized by the explorer, in order to avoid others discovering the passage (particularly if his Spanish crew had mutinied). Although historians usually do not accept Behaim's influence on the discovery of the passage to the Pacific, it is fact that he is cited in the original Pigafetta's diary as the author of the original drawing of the channel. Magellan himself stated that he knew that a southern passage through a sound would lead to the "Southern Sea" (which Balboa had discovered in 1513 through the Isthmus of Panama), since he had seen the sound on a chart authored by Martin Behaim. Pigafetta later wrote:

But Hernando knew that is was the question of a very mysterious strait by which one could sail and which he had seen described on a map in the Treasury of the King of Portugal, the map having been made by an excellent man called Martin de Boemia.

While Martin Behaim may be regarded as a contributor to the discovery of the Straits of Magellan, he might have only made a copy of an original sketch of the strait.