ABSTRACT
Fieen years aer the death of Philip II, a scribe named Alonso Gascón de Cardona writing from the Far East to the Spanish court described empires so fabulous that they had to be seen to be believed: “e further you travel and the more you see, the buildings, the people and other such things, the more you can lend credence to the old novels about chivalry, knights and magic spells.”1
