HUGUENOT belief and remained standard within the
French Reformed Church for some 300 years; as such it
was often printed in French Bibles. Its content was closely
followed by the BELGIC CONFESSIONof 1561, which be-
came authoritative for the Reformed Church of the
Netherlands.
Galvão, Antonio (c. 1490–1557) Portuguese historian
Galvão was the first major historian to marshal a compre-
hensive knowledge of the voyages of all the leading con-
temporary explorers, regardless of nationality. Galvão
went to India in 1527 and rose to become governor of the
Moluccas (1536–40), before his abilities led him to be of-
fered the throne of Ternate Island. He declined, but on his
return to Portugal (1540) he found he was out of favor
and lived the rest of his life in anonymity and poverty,
dying in Lisbon. His works remain among the most accu-
rate and thorough of the period, especially Livro dos de-
scobrimentos das Antilhas de India, which was published in
Lisbon in 1563 and translated into English by Richard
HAKLUYTin 1601.Gama, Vasco da (c. 1460–1524) Portuguese navigator
Manuel I of Portugal employed da Gama to continue the
search for the sea route to India. Sailing from Lisbon with
four ships in July 1497, he successfully rounded the Cape
of Good Hope in November that year. On Christmas Day
1497 he landed in Natal, naming it in honor of Christ’s
birthday. The expedition visited Mozambique, Mombasa,
and Malindi before crossing the Indian Ocean, with the
help of a local pilot, to Calicut in May 1498. Warmly re-
ceived by Calicut’s Hindu ruler, da Gama left some Por-
tuguese behind and took some Hindus with him. Despite
unfavorable winds and many deaths from scurvy, da Gama
returned triumphantly to Lisbon in September 1499 with
two ships heavily laden with spices. Rewarded with hon-
ors and a pension, da Gama returned to Calicut (1502–03)
to avenge the murder of the men he had left there in 1498.220022 GGaallvvaa~oo,, AAnnttoonniiooGalilei GalileoAn engraving of the
author from the first edition (1613) of his
Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle
macchie solari (History and
demonstration concerning the spots on
the sun). In this work Galileo argued
against Christoph Scheiner’s view that
sunspots were small planets circling
the sun.