Background of the Author

About the author: Antonio Pigafetta (1491 — 1534).

Pigafetta was born into a wealthy Vicenza family, and studied navigation among other things. He
served on board the galleys of the Knights of Rhodes, and accompanied the papal nuncio,
Monsignor Chieregati, to Spain. Later, he joined the Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan and
his Spanish crew on their trip to the Maluku Islands. While in the Philippines Magellan was killed,
and Pigafetta was injured. Nevertheless, he recovered and was among only 18 of Magellan’s
original crew who, having completed the first circumnavigation of the world, returned to Spain on
board another vessel, the Victoria. Most importantly, Magellan kept a journal of his voyage, and
this is a key source for information about Magellan’s famous journey.

Historical background of the document

On September 8, 1522, the crew of the Victoria cast anchor in the waters off of Seville, Spain,
having just completed the first circumnavigation of the world. On board was Antonio Pigafetta, a
young Italian nobleman who had joined the expedition three years before, and served as an
assistant to Ferdinand Magellan en route to the Molucca Islands. Of all the accounts of the first
circumnavigation, by far the most important is that Venetian, Antonio Pigafetta, who accompanied
Fernao Magalhaes, the greatest navigator, perhaps, of the modern age, on the expedition that
disclosed secrets that had been so long hidden from man, Pigafetta’s account is not only the most
valuable and authentic of the few contemporary and early relations of the famous voyage, but is
also the only source of information for many details of that voyage. Probably no other historical
documents is more universally accepted by students as the final authority regarding the actual
events with which it deals.

Synopsis
On 10 August 1519, five ships departed from Seville for what was to become the first
circumnavigation of the globe. Linked by fame to the name of its captain, Magellan, much of the
expedition is known through the travelogue of one of the few crew members who returned to
Spain, Antonio Pigafetta. A narrative and cartographic record of the journey (including 23 hand-
drawn watercolour charts) from Patagonia to Indonesia, from the Philippines to the Cape of Good
Hope, Pigafetta's The First Voyage around the World is a classic of discovery and exploration
literature.

This volume is based on the critical edition by Antonio Canova. It includes an extensive
introduction to the work and generous annotations by Theodore J. Cachey Jr who discusses the
marvelous elements of the story through allusions to Magellan's travels made by writers as diverse
as Shakespeare and Gabriel García Márquez. However, Cachey is careful to point out that
Pigafetta's book is far from just a marvel-filled travel narrative. The First Voyage around the World
is also a remarkably accurate ethnographic and geographical account of the circumnavigation, and
one that has earned its reputation among modern historiographers and students of the early
contacts between Europe and the East Indies. Expertly presented and handsomely illustrated, this
edition of Pigafetta's classic travelogue is sure to enlighten new readers and invigorate the
imagination as the story has done since it first appeared.