landed on the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena. Lopes refers to it as an unknown island, and gives its position relative to Ascension Island (which he refers to by that name). It is commonly accepted that Ascension Island was first discovered in May 1501 on the outward journey of João da Nova, and some writers have questioned how Lopes could have known about that island as he left Lisbon before Nova's fleet returned. A clue is given in Lopes's own account, where he describes how, in August 1502, they picked up letters in Malindi left by the returning João da Nova. These letters might have described Nova's discovery of Ascension Island on the outward journey (although not, of course, Nova's own discovery of Saint Helena on his return in May 1502). The only quibble remains with Lopes's use of the name "Ascension" island, as it is commonly thought Nova originally named it Conceição (Conception island), and it was only renamed "Ascension" later (May 1503) by Afonso de Albuquerque. One possible explanation is that Lopes's account might not have been written immediately in 1502, but a little later after his arrival in Portugal, after the name of Ascension Island had already been settled upon. But the most probable explanation is simply that the name (and maybe even the locational information) was reported to Thomé Lopes precisely by the two 5th Armada ships that, as already mentioned, Lopes just encountered near the Cape of Good Hope (the two would have been coming precisely from Albuquerque's (re-)discovery of Ascension Island). The original Portuguese version of Thomé Lopes's account has been lost, but an Italian translation was published in 1550 in Venice, in a collection of travelogues collected by Giovanni Battista Ramusio. A translation back to Portuguese was commissioned and published in 1812. Thomé Lopes's account is one of several eyewitness account of the 4th Portuguese India Armada of 1502–03. It is widely regarded as reliable, and frequently resorted to by historians to correct the accounts by later 16th-century chroniclers (João de Barros, Gaspar Correia, etc.) See also 4th Portuguese India Armada (Gama, 1502) Notes References [Thomé Lopes (Ital.)] "Navigatione verso l'Indie orientali scritta per Thomé Lopez, scrivano de una nave Portoghesa", first pub. in Italian in Venice (1550), by Giovanni Battista Ramusio, ed., Primo volume delle navigationi et viaggi nel qua si contine la descrittione dell'Africa, et del paese del Prete Ianni,