Maximilianus Transylvanus published De Moluccis Insulis in 1523, one of the earliest printed accounts of the Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation. The text described oceanic routes, islands and global distances to a European readership. It turned sailors' testimony into printed geographical knowledge.

Travel accounts changed literary imagination by expanding the known world of metaphor, marvel and encounter. They also filtered oral reports from pilots and survivors into Latin prose that poets and chroniclers could reuse.