Francisco Ãlvares
Francisco Álvares (c. 1465, Coimbra, † around 1540 probably in Rome) was a Portuguese missionary and explorer.
Alvares was educated as a priest. In 1515 he accepted a diplomatic mission to the court of the Ethiopian Emperor, the Negus Lebna Dengel, in part. The grandmother Lebna Dengels, Empress Eleni, sent a request for help to the King Manuel I of Portugal, as Ethiopia was threatened at the time by the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. The embassy, a mixed force of soldiers and missionaries, led by Dom Rodrigo de Lima, only reached 1520 India and the port of Massawa, Ethiopia.
The embassy remained about six years in Ethiopia. In 1533, he brings in Rome a letter from the Negus to Pope Clement VII. In a first time in 1540 published book ( " Verdadeira Informação the Terras do Preste João das Indias ", " truthful report from the kingdom of Prester John of India" ) reported Francisco Álvares about his stay at the court of the Negus and is the first time the Christian West a glimpse of Christian Ethiopia.