Published March 3, 2021, 11:30 PM Salcedo Auctions holds first major Important Philippine Art & Furniture sale for 2021 to commemorate 500 years of cross-cultural encounters LARGER THAN LIFE This untitled work in oil on canvas, the largest of Elmer Borlongan’s works ever to go on auction, is the jewel of the collection to go under the hammer at Salcedo Auctions’ March 13 sale Was Ferdinand Magellan the first to circumnavigate the world? No, but we’ll get to that later. Was Magellan even Spanish? No, he was Portuguese. His name wasn’t even Magellan, it was Fernão de Magalhães. He was a page to queen consort Eleanor and Manuel I of Portugal, who later denied his campaign to sail west, instead of east, in search of a new spice route on suspicions that he was into illegal trading. So he went to King Charles I of Spain, with which Portugal at that time was engaged in intense conflict. In Spain, he was lavished with every opportunity to succeed, so he did. His was “the greatest sea voyage ever undertaken, and the most significant.” So said American historian Laurence Bergreen.