For the first group, Ponce was a heterodox, a discoverer that had gone against other discoverers, especially against the methods of discovery and the subsequent colonization process, the first three decades of which he had experienced in the Americas.

In particular for a certain official histiography, Ponce de León was also a dangerous witness who had known all the secrets of the reign of Isabella and Ferdinand as a result of escorting them as a pageboy during the days when they were both persecuted in Castile.

In the case of the second group, Ponce was a discoverer that did not fit in with the Black Legend  that had been so carefully concocted against Spain, precisely for being a heterodox, but most of all, for having been a man that had never given in to the thirst for gold, for having been a colonist and not a conqueror, for having defended the South American Indians, like so few others, for having treated them with loyalty to the Gospel that Castile had brought to the Indies.

Between the coinciding will of these and those like them, the figure of Ponce was buried, hidden among the dazzling feats of Columbus, Cortés, Balboa and Pizarro.

Gradually, his exploits were forgotten. Or, worse still, they were reduced to his obsessive expeditions in search of the Holy Fountain. His historical image was therefore deliberately distorted, transformed into that of an everlasting dreamer, the posthumous son of the Middle Ages.

For centuries, the truth about Juan Ponce de León, the truth and the truths, remained forgotten. I have patiently restored his altarpiece. I have tried to rescue a voice, whose last echo was heard almost fifty decades ago, from merciless oblivion. I have dreamed of reconstructing the vision of Discovery that a discoverer had.

In doing so, I have tried to pay a triple homage:

To Castile, because it generously sacrificed so much of itself, the best that it had for the great enterprise.

To the Spanish language, because it is the supreme symbol of the legacy of Castile in the three Americas, and which is today in urgent need of being defended against multiple aggressions.

And to the Castilians, because it was their ancestors that from 1492 onwards undertook the most formidable, collective task that Humanity had witnessed until then: colonize the New World.