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About Antonio Pigafetta

About the author: Antonio Pigafetta (1491 — 1534). From The Diary Junction,

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, [Pigafetta] kept a journal of his voyage, and this is a key source for information about Magellan’s famous journey.

About the diary: Martin Torodash, writing in 1970, noted that,

Four manuscript accounts of the voyage are extant—two French versions at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; an Italian version, considered by many scholars to be the oldest and most complete of the existing manuscripts, at the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan; and a third French version, usually referred to as the Nancy Manuscript, now at Yale University.

Only the Philippine-related entries are included in the project, starting with March 6, 1521, to November 6, 1521, based on this Quincintennial Chart by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines:

Originally, the Philippine Diary Project used the version, The First Voyage Round the World by Antonio Pigafetta, translated by Lord Stanley of Alderley as reproduced in Wikisource. However, as Torodash observed that “Lord Stanley, whose 1874 translation for the Hakluyt Society has been discarded by modern scholars…”, this version has been replaced byThe First Voyage around the World (1519–1522): An Account of Magellan’s Expedition, edited and Introduced by Theodore J. Cachey Jr., University of Toronto Press, 2007, in turn based on The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXIII, 1519-1522. Which, in Note on the Translation, states that,

The classic Robertson translation (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1906) has been thoroughly revised for this edition. Besides the general updating which has been effected by revising the translation against the most currently authoritative text of the original, numerous and in some cases crucial errors of the Robertson translation have been corrected.

In addition, Cachey wrote,

As mentioned, the most authoritative edition of the text, upon which the present English translation is based, is by A. Canova (Padua: Antenore 1999).

The above is based on the Ambrosiana manuscript. Note however that many things scrupulously maintained in the Cachey editing of the work were dispensed with for the purposes of The Philippine Diary Project: placement and numbers of periods, identification of lines, specific placement of map information, etc., should not be considered to reflect the book.

There are also versions in two other languages, Spanish and Filipino.

The Spanish version is from Primer Viaje Arededor Del Globo de Antonio Pigafetta, Edición de Benito Caetano para la Fundación Civiliter. Sevilla, 2012.

The Filipino version is from Unang Paglalayag Paikot ng Daigdig ni Antonio Pigafetta, salin ni Phillip Yerro Kimpo. Manila, Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino,and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts of the Republic of the Philippines, 2017. The translation was itself based on First voyage around the world. Manila, Filipiniana Book Guild, 1969.

For the entries, there are some notes at the start of each entry, when applicable from the following sources.

The book The First Voyage Around the World 1519-1522: An Account of Magellan’s Voyage, edited by Theodore J. Cachey Jr., contains a chronology; this has been adapted in Red Text.

As part of the Quincentennial commemoration of the voyage, the National Historical Commission of the Philippines decided to make the Philippine national contribution consist of the identification, and marking, of Thirty-Four Sites Marking the Philippine Route of the Magellan-Elcano Expedition. The information compiled by the NCHP is in Blue Text.

RutaElcano: The First Trip Around the World, an award-winning site, further broke down the Magellan-Elcano expedition and this is presented in Green Text.