Antonio Pigafetta

Famous Italian traveller born in Vicenza around 1490 and died in the same city in 1534,
who is also known by the name of Antonio Lombardo or Francisco Antonio Pigafetta.
Initially linked to the order of Rhodes, which was Knight, went to Spain in 1519,
accompanied by Monsignor Francisco Chiericato, and was made available from Carlos V
to promote the company initiated by the Catholic Monarchs in the Atlantic. Soon he
became a great friendship with Magallanes, who accompanied, together with Juan
Sebastián Elcano, in the famous expedition to the Moluccas begun in August of 1519 and
finished in September 1522. He was wounded at the battle of the island of Cebu
(Philippines) in which Magellan found death. The output of Seville made it aboard of the
Trinity; the return, along with a handful of survivors (17 of the 239 who left this
adventure), in victory, ship that entered in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) on
September 6, the designated year. In the last years of his life, he traveled by land from
France to finally return to Italy in 1523. He wrote the relation of that trip, which was the
first around the world, Italian and with the title of Relazioni in lathe to the primo viaggio
di circumnavigazione. Notizia del Mondo Nuovo with figure you dei paesi scoperti,
which was published posthumously, in 1536.

The account of Pigafetta is the single most important source about the voyage of
circumnavigation, despite its tendency to include fabulous details. He took notes daily,
as he mentioned when he realizes his surprise at Spain and see that he had lost a day
(due to its driving direction). Includes descriptions of numerous animals, including
sharks, the Storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus), the pink spoonbill (Ajaja ajaja) and the
Phyllium orthoptera, an insect similar to a sheet. Pigafetta captured a copy of the latter
near Borneo and kept it in a box, believing a moving blade who lived in the air. His
report is rich in ethnographic details. He practiced as an interpreter and came to
develop, at least in two Indonesian dialects.

The geographical impact of the circumnavigation was enormous, since the

Magallanes-Elcano expedition overturned many of the conventions of traditional
geography. It provided a demonstration of the sphericity of the Earth and revolutionized
the solid belief, so influential in the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, that the
Earth's surface was covered for the most part by the continents.Pigafetta also wrote a
treatise of navigation mainly Ptolemaic inspiration, but that contains the description of
three methods to determine the length, probably derived from the Francisco Faleiro.
These methods were: 1) by calculating the distance from a point of known length by
observation of the distance of the Moon from the ecliptic; 2) by observation of the
conjunction of the moon with a star or planet, and 3) through the use of the compass.
Pigafetta also describes how to take the altitude of the pole star to determine latitude,
know the wind direction and other minor navigation problems. Mistakenly believed that
the direction of the compass coincided with the meridian of iron island. His description
of the trip also includes details of the own navigation, as the description of the Sun at the
Zenith, and forwards to readers interested in his own treatise on navigation
and Aristotle.

Antonio Pigafetta(Italian: ; c. 1491 – c. 1531) was an Italian scholar and explorer from
the Republic of Venice. He traveled with the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan and his
crew by order of the King Charles I of Spain on their voyage around the world. During the
expedition, he served as Magellan's assistant and kept an accurate journal which later assisted
him in translating the Cebuano language. It is the first recorded document concerning the
language.
Pigafetta was one of the 18 men who returned to Spain in 1522, out of the approximately 240
who set out three years earlier. The voyage completed the first circumnavigation of the
world; Juan Sebastián Elcano had served as captain after Magellan's death during the voyage
in 1521 in the Philippines. Pigafetta's surviving journal is the source for much of what is 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 in the city of Vicenza in northeast Italy. In his youth he
studied astronomy, geography and cartography. He then served on board the ships of
the Knighters of Rhodes at the beginning of the 16th century. Until 1519, he accompanied
the papal nuncio, Monsignor Francesco Chieregati, to Spain.
Voyage around the world

In Seville, Pigafetta heard of Magellan's planned expedition and decided to join, accepting the
title of supernumerary (sobresaliente), and a modest salary of 1,000 maravedís.[2] During the
voyage, which started in August 1519, Pigafetta collected extensive data concerning
the geography, climate, flora, fauna and the native inhabitants of the places that the
expedition visited. His meticulous notes proved invaluable to future explorers and cartographers,
mainly due to his inclusion of nautical and linguistic data, and also to
latter-day historians because of its vivid, detailed style. The only other sailor to maintain a journal
during the voyage was Francisco Albo, Victoria's last pilot, who kept a formal logbook.
Return

Pigafetta was wounded on Mactan in the Philippines, where Magellan was killed in the Battle of
Mactan in April 1521 by the local ruler Lapu-Lapu. 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 in the modern Province of Cadiz in September
1522, three years after his departure, Pigafetta returned to the Republic of Venice. He related his
experiences in the "Report on the First Voyage Around the World" (Italian: Relazione del primo
viaggio intorno al mondo), which was composed in Italian and was distributed to European
monarchs in handwritten form before it was eventually published by Italian historian Giovanni
Battista Ramusio in 1550–59. The account centers on the events in the Mariana Islands and
the Philippines, although it included several maps of other areas as well, including the first known
use of the word "Pacific Ocean" (Oceano Pacifico) on a map.[2] The original document was not
preserved.
However, it was not through Pigafetta's writings that Europeans first learned of the
circumnavigation of the globe. Rather, it was through an account written by a Flanders-based
writer 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 under the command of Juan Sebastian Elcano. After Magellan and
Elcano's voyage, Pigafetta utilized the connections he had made prior to the voyage with
the Knights of Rhodes to achieve membership in the order.

Antonio Pigafetta
Famous Italian traveller born in Vicenza around 1490 and died in the same city in 1534,
who is also known by the name of Antonio Lombardo or Francisco Antonio Pigafetta.
Initially linked to the order of Rhodes, which was Knight, went to Spain in 1519,
accompanied by Monsignor Francisco Chiericato, and was made available from Carlos V
to promote the company initiated by the Catholic Monarchs in the Atlantic. Soon he
became a great friendship with Magallanes, who accompanied, together with Juan
Sebastián Elcano, in the famous expedition to the Moluccas begun in August of 1519 and
finished in September 1522. He was wounded at the battle of the island of Cebu
(Philippines) in which Magellan found death. The output of Seville made it aboard of the
Trinity; the return, along with a handful of survivors (17 of the 239 who left this
adventure), in victory, ship that entered in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) on September 6,
the designated year. In the last years of his life, he traveled by land from France to finally
return to Italy in 1523. He wrote the relation of that trip, which was the first around the
world, Italian and with the title of Relazioni in lathe to the primo viaggio di
circumnavigazione. Notizia del Mondo Nuovo with figure you dei paesi scoperti, which
was published posthumously, in 1536.

The account of Pigafetta is the single most important source about the voyage of
circumnavigation, despite its tendency to include fabulous details. He took notes daily, as
he mentioned when he realizes his surprise at Spain and see that he had lost a day (due to
its driving direction). Includes descriptions of numerous animals, including sharks, the
Storm petrel (Hydrobates pelagicus), the pink spoonbill (Ajaja ajaja) and the Phyllium
orthoptera, an insect similar to a sheet. Pigafetta captured a copy of the latter near Borneo
and kept it in a box, believing a moving blade who lived in the air. His report is rich in
ethnographic details. He practiced as an interpreter and came to develop, at least in two
Indonesian dialects.

The geographical impact of the circumnavigation was enormous, since the

Magallanes-Elcano expedition overturned many of the conventions of traditional
geography. It provided a demonstration of the sphericity of the Earth and revolutionized
the solid belief, so influential in the first voyage of Christopher Columbus, that the Earth's
surface was covered for the most part by the continents.Pigafetta also wrote a treatise of
navigation mainly Ptolemaic inspiration, but that contains the description of three
methods to determine the length, probably derived from the Francisco Faleiro. These
methods were: 1) by calculating the distance from a point of known length by observation
of the distance of the Moon from the ecliptic; 2) by observation of the conjunction of the
moon with a star or planet, and 3) through the use of the compass. Pigafetta also describes
how to take the altitude of the pole star to determine latitude, know the wind direction
and other minor navigation problems. Mistakenly believed that the direction of the
compass coincided with the meridian of iron island. His description of the trip also includes
details of the own navigation, as the description of the Sun at the Zenith, and forwards to
readers interested in his own treatise on navigation and Aristotle.