Talk:Ruy López de Villalobos

Francis Xavier left Malacca on January 1, 1546 and landed on Amboyna, where he stayed until mid-June.

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But Ruy López de Villalobos died at Amboyna in 1544.

"Villalobos later died in his prison cell in the Island of Amboyna, under the care of Saint Francis Xavier, Apostle to the Indies."

This description don't match.211.124.252.180 09:19, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

This observation is well placed but not because of the dates, 1546 and 1544. Francis Xavier was indeed in Amboina at the time Villalobos was there. The fact is there is no primary source that supports the oft-repeated claim, now a legend in itself, St. Francis Xavier cared for Villalobos. Here is note 460 by Martin J. Noone from his book, The Discovery and Conquest of the Philippines 1521-1581 click http://name.umdl.umich.edu/ADN6882.0001.001, probably the most complete history of the Villalobos expedition in any language: "To those familiar with the life of St. Francis Xavier, Villalobos is supposed to have died in the arms of the Apostle of the Indies who attended him in his last moments. Xavier had only recently arrived in Amboina from India and was on his way to the Molucccas, unknown and obscure at that time, so much so his name is not even mentioned by either Alvarado or Sanesteban [Garcia Escalante de Alvarado and Fr. Geronimo de Sanesteban who both wrote eyewitness accounts of the Villalobos expedition]. From Francis' own letter to the rector at the college at Goa, we know that he met with and talked to his dejected countrymen of the Villalobos expedition, many of them Basques like himself, and decent man that he was, recommended the rector to take care of the Augustinians and the other priests, including Cosme de Torres, who later joined the Jesuits in India and became Francis Xavier's companion in Japan. In the last decade of the sixteenth and early decades of the seventeenth century when the saint became famous, writers only then mention his presence in Amboina at the same time that the Villalobos expedition passed by on their way home." Vicente C. de Jesus 01:12, 11 September 2006 (UTC)--Vicente Calibo de Jesus (talk) 20:48, 14 September 2009 (UTC)