Francisco Álvares

In 1515 he traveled to Ethiopia as part of the Portuguese embassy to emperor Lebna Dengel accompanied by returning Ethiopian ambassador Matheus.

The precise date of Francisco Álvares death, like that of his birth, is unknown, but according to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, it was later than 1540, in which year an account of his travels were published at Lisbon.

Another version of what Álvares wrote was included in an anthology of travel narratives, Navigationi et Viaggi (1550) assembled and published by Giovanni Battista Ramusio.

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).

"[1] 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."