Introduction

When the Viscount de Santarem reproduced in his last Atlas, dated 1849, a series of twenty-six maps under the general title Portulan dresse entre les annees 1524–1530 par Francisco Rodrigues, pilote portugais, qui a fait le voyage aux Moluques, he did not state where the maps were to be found. The present copy of Pires' Suma is not the original he himself wrote, and the copyist has left only too many instances of his own carelessness. Tome Pires cuts a modest figure when compared with some of the men who shine in the history of the Portuguese in the East during the first half of the sixteenth century. Castanheda informs us that 'the King of Portugal did not send any ambassador [from Portugal], because, thinking that the King of China was near, he ordered Fernao Peres to send there one of his captains, or whoever he might choose.