Victoria was the only ship from Magellan's original five-vessel expedition to complete the first circumnavigation of the Earth. Commanded on the final stage by Juan Sebastian Elcano, it reached Sanlucar de Barrameda, Spain, in September 1522. Only eighteen members of the original expedition returned aboard it.

The voyage enlarged the geographical imagination available to Renaissance poets and became part of the literature of global exploration. Pablo Neruda and later Latin American poets recast Magellan's fleet from perspectives attentive to Indigenous peoples, imperial ambition and the violence concealed within heroic narratives.