Antonio Pigafetta (
1491 —
1534) was a
Venetian scholar and traveller born in
Vicenza. He travelled with the
Portuguese explorer
Ferdinand Magellan and his crew on their voyage to the
Indies. During the expedition, he became a strict assistant of Magellan and kept an accurate journal which later assisted him in translating one of the
Philippine languages,
Cebuano. It is the first recorded document concerning this language.
Out of approximately 240 men who set out with Magellan in 1519, Pigafetta was one of only 18 who returned to
Spain in 1522, having completed the first
circumnavigation of the World, under the captainship of
Juan Sebastián Elcano after Magellan's death. His journal is the source for much of what we know about Magellan and Elcano's voyage.
At least one warship of the
Italian Navy, a
destroyer of the
Navigatori class, was named after him in 1931.
Youth
Pigafetta belonged to a rich family of
Vicenza. In his youth he studied
astronomy,
geography and
cartography. He served on board the ships of the
Knights of Rhodes at the beginning of the 16th century. Until 1519, he accompanied the
papal nuncio,
Monsignor Chieregati, to Spain.
Voyage
thumb|left|Map of Borneo by Pigafetta.
In
Seville, Antonio Pigafetta heard of Magellan's planned expedition and elected to embark, accepting the title of
sobrasaliente (
supernumerary) and a modest
salary of 1,000 maravedís. During the trip, Pigafetta collected extensive data concerning the
geography,
climate,
flora,
fauna and the inhabitants of the places that the expedition visited. His meticulous notes were invaluable to future
explorers and
cartographers, mainly due to his inclusion of nautical and linguistic data, and to latter-day
historians because of its vivid, detailed style. The only other sailor to maintain a journal during the voyage was Francisco Albo, last
Victoria's
pilot, who kept a formal
logbook.
Return
thumb|Casa Pigafetta, his palace in Vicenza.
Pigafetta was wounded on
Mactan in the Philippines, where Magellan was killed. Nevertheless, he recovered and was among the 18 who accompanied
Juan Sebastián Elcano on board the
Victoria, on the return voyage to Spain.
Upon reaching port in
Sanlúcar de Barrameda (
Province of Cadiz) in September of 1522, three years after his departure, Pigafetta returned to the Republic of Venice. He related his experiences in
Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (Report on the First Voyage Around the World), which was composed in
Italian. Although parts were published in
Paris in 1525, the manuscript was not published in its entirety until the late eighteenth century. The original document was not preserved.
It was not through Antonio Pigafetta's writings that Europeans first learned of the circumnavigation of the globe. Rather, it was through an account written by
Maximilianus Transylvanus, which was published in 1523. Transylvanus had been instructed to interview some of the survivors of the voyage when Magellan’s surviving ship
Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522. After Magellan's voyage, Pigafetta utilized the connections he had made prior to the voyage with the Knights of Rhodes to himself achieved membership in the order.
In popular culture
A 2002 film (
Lapu-Lapu) about the Philippine hero
Lapu-Lapu depicts Antonio Pigafetta as a member of Magellan's expedition on the island of
Cebu.
See also
Bibliography
