PIGAFETTA, ANTONIO. – Navigator belonging to a noble family from Vicenza, born around 1480 or perhaps a few years later. Nothing is known of him until 1519, when he is found attached to the person of Francesco Chiericati, his fellow citizen, apostolic nuncio to Charles V; he had perhaps previously entered the Order of the Knights of Rhodes, and may have travelled on the Order’s galleys. In Barcelona he learned that Ferdinand Magellan was preparing his great expedition and obtained permission to embark as an attendant to the commander; in fact, he thereafter remained constantly at his side and accompanied him on the ill-fated expedition to Mactan in the Philippines, where Magellan met his death, while P. escaped because, owing to a wound previously sustained, he was unable to go ashore. After Magellan’s death he acquired greater authority aboard the ship “Victoria,” the only survivor, and was one of the 18 who returned unharmed to Lisbon.
Upon returning to Italy, he undertook to publish an account of the voyage, for which he had kept a careful day-by-day diary; he was at Mantua with the Gonzaga, then in Venice, where before the doge and the Collegio he delivered an interesting account of the voyage (1523); thereafter he was summoned to Rome by Clement VII, who kept the manuscript intended for publication in his possession. In 1524 P. was in Venice and obtained the privilege to print his book. After 1524 all trace of P. is lost. A recent hypothesis that he entered the service of the sultan in Constantinople and ended his life there is not implausible, but is unsupported by documents. He was certainly already dead in 1536. The first edition of the work is in French and undated; but it is certain that the account was written in Italian; the first Italian edition (Venetian) dates from 1536, followed by the Ramusian edition of 1550. The original manuscript is unknown. P.’s account is the fullest and most authoritative that exists concerning the first circumnavigation of the world, not for its itinerary, nautical, or technical data, but for its details concerning the events of the perilous voyage, its descriptions of the countries and their inhabitants, their usages and customs, their products, etc. P. displays a sound education and a keen spirit of observation. He is also the author of a short treatise on the art of navigation, of modest merit.