Antonio Pigafetta

author

Antonio Pigafetta

Best known as the sharp-eyed chronicler of Magellan’s expedition, this Venetian traveler left one of the most vivid firsthand accounts of the first circumnavigation of the globe. His writing captures both the danger of the voyage and the wonder of encountering unfamiliar peoples and places.

3 Audiobooks

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 34 of 55, 1519-1522; 1280-1605 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

by Antonio Pigafetta

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522 Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century

by Antonio Pigafetta

The first voyage round the world, by Magellan : translated from the accounts of Pigafetta, and other contemporary writers

The first voyage round the world, by Magellan : translated from the accounts of Pigafetta, and other contemporary writers

by Antonio Pigafetta

About the author

Born in Vicenza around 1491, Antonio Pigafetta was a Venetian scholar and explorer who became famous for joining Ferdinand Magellan’s 1519 expedition to the Spice Islands. He sailed on the voyage that became the first documented circumnavigation of the Earth, surviving the journey and recording what he saw along the way.

Pigafetta is remembered above all for the detailed journal he kept during the expedition. His account preserves descriptions of storms, ports, court ceremonies, trade, and encounters across the Atlantic, South America, the Pacific, and Southeast Asia. It also became an important early source on the voyage itself and on the peoples the crew met, including in the Philippines.

Although much about his life remains uncertain, his reputation has lasted because his narrative gives the expedition a human voice: curious, observant, and often amazed. For readers interested in exploration, navigation, and the earliest era of global travel writing, his work remains one of the great eyewitness records of the 16th century.