Elkanotar Juan Sebastian, Pizkundeko humanista utopikoa?

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to argue that the political thought of Juan Sebastian Elkano lines up with the utopian humanists of the Renaissance. Given that his written report of the circumnavigation is lost, and his letters and received testimonies are too scarce, I maintain that to access to his political opinions we should resort to the Chronicles of Maximilianus Transylvanus and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo. Most certainly, those two Chronicles of the circumnavigation bear an almost literal transcription of his lost written account. I conclude that the Chronicle that Transylvanus rushed to write in Latin, for instance, is a hasty translation of Elkano’s report. If this hypothesis is correct, that Chronicle contains the utopian imagination of Elkano, particularly in the astounding paragraphs where he describes the political and religious practices of the people of Borneo. There, Elkano would be expressing his opposition to imperialist expansions or bellicose kings, and his sympathies for religious tolerance, without mincing his words. This hypothesis suits every known data about him, while casting down the Castilian construction of ‘imperial’ Del Cano. Therefore, I propose to continue doing research in this direction.