Francisco Álvares (c. 1465 – 1536–1541) was aPortuguesemissionary andexplorer to Ethiopia.

Álvarez lived most of his life in Coimbra, Portugal.^[1] In 1515 he traveled to Ethiopia as part of the Portuguese embassy to emperorLebna Dengel accompanied by returningEthiopian ambassador Matheus. The embassy arrived only in 1520 toEthiopia where he joined long sought Portuguese envoyPêro da Covilhã. There he remained six years, returning to Lisbon in 1526-27. He wrote a report entitledVerdadeira Informação das Terras do Preste João das Índias ("A True Relation of the Lands ofPrester John of the Indies") about his time in Ethiopia.^[2]

Francisco Álvares was a chaplain-priest and almoner to KingManuel I of Portugal. He was sent in 1515 as part of the Portuguese embassy to the nəgusä nägäst (Emperor of Ethiopia),^[3] accompanied by theEthiopian ambassador Matheus. Their first attempt to reach the port ofMassawa failed due to the actions ofLopo Soares de Albergaria, governor ofPortuguese India, which got no closer than theDahlak Archipelago and was aborted with the death of the Portuguese ambassador,Duarte Galvão atKamaran. Álvares and Mattheus were forced to wait until the arrival of Soares' replacement,Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, who successfully sent the embassy on, withDom Rodrigo de Lima replacing Duarte Galvão. The party at last reached Massawa on April 9, 1520, and reached the court ofLebna Dengel where he befriended several Europeans who had gained the favor of the Emperor, which includedPêro da Covilhã andNicolao Branceleon. Father Álvares remained six years in Ethiopia, returning toLisbon in 1527.^[4][5]

In 1533 he was allowed to accompany DomMartinho de Portugal toRome on an embassy toPope Clement VII, to whom Father Álvares delivered the letter Lebna Dengel had written to the Pope.^[4]

The precise date of Francisco Álvares death, like that of his birth, is unknown, but according to theEncyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, it was later than 1540, in which year an account of his travels were published at Lisbon.^[3] In the introduction of their mid 20th century translation of Álvares' work,C.F. Beckingham andG.W.B. Huntingford furnish evidence that points to Álvares' death inRome, and admit that he may have died before his work was published.

In 1540,Luís Rodrigues published a version of Álvares account in a one volume folio, entitledVerdadeira Informação das Terras do Preste João das Indias ("A True Relation of the Lands ofPrester John of the Indies").^[6] C.F. Beckingham and G.W.B. Huntingford cite evidence, based in part on the earlier work of ProfessorRoberto Almagia, showing that Rodrigues's publication is only a part of Álvares's entire account. Another version of what Álvares wrote was included in an anthology of travel narratives,Navigationi et Viaggi (1550) assembled and published byGiovanni Battista Ramusio.^[7] Almagia also identified three manuscripts in theVatican Library which contain versions of excerpts from the original manuscript.

Francisco Álvares' work has been translated into English at least twice. The first time was the work ofHenry Stanley, 3rd Baron Stanley of Alderley, for theHakluyt Society in 1881.^[8] This translation was revised and augmented with notes by C. F. Beckingham and G. W. B. Huntingford,The Prester John of the Indies (Cambridge: Hakluyt Society, 1961).

The author of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article was critical of Álvares' information, believing it should "be received with caution, as the author is prone to exaggerate, and does not confine himself to what came within his own observation."^[3] Beckingham and Huntingford, however, have a higher opinion of Álvares' testimony, stating that not only is it "incomparably more detailed than any earlier account of Ethiopia that has survived; it is also a very important source for Ethiopian history, for it was written just before the country was devastated by the [...] invasions of the second quarter of the sixteenth century." He provides the first recorded and detailed descriptions ofAxum andLalibela. They continue:

"He is sometimes wrong, but very rarely silly or incredible. He made a few mistakes; he may well have made others that we cannot detect because he is our sole authority; when he tried to describe buildings his command of language was usually inadequate; he is often confused and obscure, though this may be as much his printer's fault as his own; his prose is frequently difficult to read and painful to translate; but he seems to us to be free from the dishonesty of the traveller who tries to exaggerate his own knowledge, importance, or courage".^[9]

• Alain, Mathilde (2024)."'Dicono li Ethiopi': Ethiopian contributions to Francisco Álvares's travel account to Ethiopia (c. 1540)".MHRA Working Papers in the Humanities.18:5–14.doi:10.59860/wph.a27411a.ISSN 1994-8662.
• Stanley, Henry Edward, ed. (1881).Narrative of the Portuguese embassy to Abyssinia during the years 1520-1527, by Francisco Alvares. London: Hakluyt Society.
• Howgego, Raymond John, ed. (2003). "Alvarez, Francisco".Encyclopedia of Exploration to 1800. Hordern House.ISBN 1875567364.

Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy in Abyssinia during the years 1520-1527 by Father Francisco Alvarez (online copy)

• 1460s births
• 1540s deaths
• 15th-century Portuguese people
• 16th-century Portuguese explorers
• Portuguese explorers of Africa
• Foreign relations of Portugal
• People from Coimbra
• Portuguese Renaissance writers
• Portuguese Roman Catholic missionaries
• Portuguese travel writers

• Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference
• Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica
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