Will Bruges posthumously fulfill Marcel van Brussel’s life dream? Street name of statue for Roland van Brugge!
Bruges resident Marcel Van Brussel is at the age of 77. He died peacefully on August 10 in palliative care in Bruges, in the presence of his son Aksel. The retired textile engineer could no longer realize his big dream: a statue of street name for Roland who took part in the circumnavigation of the world 500 years ago. Perhaps the Bruges city council can make that dream a posthumous death?
A working group including former VRT boss Cas Goossens and actor Kurt Defrancq has been working for years for the rehabilitation of the forgotten Bruges resident Roldan de Argote. The ‘ugliest person on earth’ 500 years ago as a gunner participates in the very first circumnavigation of the world.
Marcel Van Brussel, who was born in Bruges on 15 July 1945, was the driving force behind Roldans earnings. As shown by a statue of the workgroup name, reconstructing Roldan’s life.
Magellan
Fuimos los primeros. We were the first. With this slogan, the Spaniards and the Portuguese are fighting an international robbery these days, which evoke memories of the fierce battle waged by the two powers five centuries ago to win supremacy over the world’s seas. Who can claim the first sea voyage around the world?
The Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan was in the service of the Spaniards when he left Seville on August 10, 1519, but he was killed in action in the Philippines on April 27, 1521. The one who did end the great adventure alive was Roldan van Brugge. But for the time being, his meritorious exploit is not even being paid attention to at two large, international exhibitions that will be set up with great fuss in Madrid in 2020 in the honor and glory of Ferdinand Magellan.
Legendary Expedition
“Roldan was one of the 31 survivors of this three-year beginning, legendary expedition, one genesis on five ships took part,” Bruggeling Marcel Van Brussel (77), a textile textile who had an ultimate life’s work, told us during an interview in 2020: reconstruct the life of Roldan de Argote, a Spanish corruption of the name Roeland Herregots or Vergote.
Marcel Van Brussels hoped that Roldan de Argote would receive at least a statue of a street name in Bruges through his merits. “But culture alderman Nico Blontrock asked us to be patient for a few more years: now all activities go to women’s streets and to the commemoration of the discovery of Ste Simon.”
Five Flemings
How did this Bruggeling track down his forgotten fellow townsman? Marcel Van Brussel has always been banned by shipbuilding and maritime history. Roldan the Argote’s name popped up in the book Magellan. La Question des Moluques from 1911 by the Antwerp historian Jean Denucé. That sparked Marcel’s interest.
Five Flemish people took part in Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition: two people from Bruges, two people from Antwerp and one from Brussels. Roldan was the Fleming who faced the adventure. His fellow townsman from Bruges, ship’s servant Pedro de Urrea, returned earlier with the deserting ship San Antonio. Many events arose from scurvy or were killed on one of the islands during the journey.”
It was an international expedition, sponsored by the wealthy German family Fugger and especially by the Spaniard Cristobal de Haro. His brother Diego de Haro was a shipowner in Antwerp and he recruited a few Flemings for that fleet. Flanders then had the best gunners, Roldan clearly enjoyed an excellent reputation…
Campana de Roldan
The aim of the Spanish expedition was to reach the Moluccas islands, which were known for their use, by way of way. Because the varied route was in the hands of the Portuguese. Ferdinand Magellan volunteered because he was at odds with the Portuguese court.
So, according to Marcel van Brussel, it was not even the intention to sail around the world! The five ships sailed the Atlantic Ocean and continued their route along the planned coast of the new continent of America. They sought a passage south to the Pacific Ocean, later that passage was called the Strait of Magellan.”
way out
“Roldan de Argote played an important role in this expedition. In Patagonia, South America, he met twelve others in a dinghy who was sent out on reconnaissance. With the assignment to find a way out of this strait. During that search he climbed a hill on an island and saw that the waterway to the Pacific Ocean was open, but also that there was a clear tidal effect”, Marcel Van Brussel told us.
“So thanks to Roldan, Magellan’s expedition was able to make the passage to the Pacific. The bell-shaped hill he climbed is officially called the Campana de Roldan. The name of this Bruggeling appears on various world maps. In 2006 I traveled to Patagonia with fellow townsman Ludo Schotte together with the local university of Punta Arena looking for work to develop. We then sailed with a zodiac of whale watchers around the island of Carlos III, close to that hill.”
Mutiny
Later, in the Philippines, Ferdinand Magellan got involved in a dispute between rival regional clans and the expedition leader was executed. After shipwreck, desertion and mutiny, two ships remained on the Moluccas, which were packed with cloves, pepper and nutmeg. The Trinidad was originally supposed to go to Spain via North America, but fell into the hands of the Portuguese.
Only four of the sixty achieved homelands reached their country eight years later. The Victoria, with Roldan on board, made the route via the Cape of Good Hope. When he met twelve companions on the Cape Verde islands, he was captured by the Portuguese.
Juan Sebastian Elcano, who was in charge after the death of Ferdinand Magellan, fled with eighteen sailors to Seville, which he reached with the Victoria on September 22, 1522. After the mediation of Charles V, the Portuguese Roldan and his friends were released, they only arrived a few months later, at the end of 1522, in Spain.
ugliest person
“Roldan never returned to Flanders. In 1526, together with some comrades from his first world tour, he again took part in an expedition to the Moluccas. There a battle broke out against the Portuguese. Roldan badly wounded in the face and was repeated in some books as the ugliest person in the world. He must have died on an island in the Pacific before 1534.”
“Anyway, Roldan van Brugge deserves to be brought out of obscurity. Spain has now granted permission. Bruges should also do something. At least gave him a street name in the port”, Marcel van Brussel in an interview two years ago.
Is the city council of Bruges finally taking action? The funeral of Marcel Van Brussel will take place on Wednesday 17 August in the auditorium of the Blue Tower in Bruges crematorium.