ABSTRACT
Most Sixteenth Century accounts of early Portuguese expansion into the trading world of Monsoon Asia are replete with tales of violence – battles, sieges, massacres, atrocities and general carnage seem to re-occur in their pages, like choruses in an opera. One of the most frequently cited stories of this kind concerns a sequence of outrages allegedly committed by Vasco da Gama and his men at Calicut, during the Admiral’s second voyage to India in 1502–3. Vasco da Gama’s second visit to India is relatively well documented, there being at least ten separate contemporary or near-contemporary published accounts of varying quality, detail and accuracy, that describe it. Matteo da Bergamo, an Italian commercial agent in the service of the Affaitadi, also sailed with Gama’s fleet in 1502. He wrote two letters to his employers during the return voyage, both dated 18 April 1503.
