Talk:João de Trasto

Speculation about João's existence
A while back, fellow editor Walrasiad altered this artcle to remove some of the material I'd introduced and introduce speculation about João's very existence. That's all well and good, I'm not really an expert on the subject – but I'd gotten my information from a scholarly book on the subject, as indicated by my citations. It's an older book so it is entirely possible that there have been new revelations on the subject since then, but to contravene sourced data like that really demands the support of some new source with a comparable level of authority, and no source was provided. In the mean time I've reverted that change. --Xiaphias (talk) 06:39, 2 June 2012 (UTC)
 * You quoted Major (1868), even though he explicitly notes the source (Diogo Gomes) is unreliable. Unreliable enough that in his second edition (1877), Major deletes that section and omits all mention of João de Trasto.  He is not mentioned in modern scholarly histories of the Portuguese discoveries (e.g. Diffie & Winius, Russell, etc.)  In fact, Gabriel Pereira, who did his own transcription (separate from Schmeller's printed edition) claims it was a mistranscription in printing of the Bavarian edition of Gomes's letter, that the original actually reads "Crasto" and not "Trasto", and should mean "Castro".  The hypothesis that by "João de Trasto" Gomes actually meant the well-known 1425 expedition of Fernando de Castro has long been suspected, and was pronounced conclusively (as far as Portuguese historiography is concerned) by Damiao Peres back in 1943.  In other words, it is not really disputed anymore.  Only people who rely on the first edition of Major tend to make that mistake. I will toss in the references.  Give me a minute. Walrasiad (talk) 07:44, 2 June 2012 (UTC)

Okay the changes look good, and it sounds like you know what you're talking about. Just wanted to make sure the revision was legit since it didn't match up with what I'd read. --Xiaphias (talk) 19:17, 2 June 2012 (UTC)