The First Voyage around the World by Antonio Pigafetta
The First Voyage around the world was actually a commercial venture
with investors, captain and crew that needed to be paid. Would you have
wanted to be one of the investors to such a limited success voyage? Every
investor was paid 6 times in their investment and that is how valuable spices
are. The first voyage around the world is useful to know the events that led to
today’s world and the attitudes which preceded our current attitudes. It is also
an account of an astonishing feat. Pigafetta is the best source of information on
the first voyage around the world in 1519–22, an unprecedted feat of
exploration and seamanship. Out of five ships, one came back and out of 240
men, only a small number survived. Magellan’s voyage paved the way for
greater interactions between different parts of the globe. It was finally proven
that the New World has its own continent rather than an extension of Asia and
that there was an ocean between the two and those resources of the Indies
could be acquired through new means. Eventually this would lead to the first
globalized trade between China, the New World, and Spain. Magellan's travels
also give us the first accounts of new fauna such as penguins and seals found
on the tip of South America. Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian scholar who
accompanied Magellan, records the encounters with the indigenous peoples of
South America and the Visayas.
Antonio Pigafetta was born on the year 1492 at Vicenza, Republic of
Venice (now called as Italy). His nationality is Venetian and he died on 1531 at
the age of about 40-50. Pigafetta belonged to a rich family from the city of
Vicenza in Northeast Italy and is known for chronicling Magellan’s
circumnavigation. When he is younger, he studied astronomy, geography and
cartography. He then served on board the ships of the Knights of Rhodes at the
beginning of the 16th century. The first voyage around the world was thought
and done by Juan Sebastián Elcano whom became captain of the Victoria ship
when Magellan was killed. He was born on 1486 at Getaria, Spain and died on
the 4th of August 1526 at the Pacific Ocean. He is a full-blooded Spanish and
known for his first circumnavigation of the Earth. He is living with his lovely wife,
María Hernández Dernialde, with their two daughters and one illegitimate son.
His parents are Domingo Sebastián Elcano I and Catalina Del Puerto.
Magellan travelled in many parts of the world wherein it’s unknown or
people didn’t still know how exactly they were shaped to Old World
(Afro-Eurasia). The shape of America, Southern Africa and South-eastern
Asia is new on their knowledge and these things were not known by
cartographer, Ptolemy (the most popular cartographer from Roman times to the
16th century). The Roman era were still mysterious to Old Worlders, so we
falsefied some possibilities with the travel, in that context they were considered
discoveries by Europeans. They believe that the Earth isn’t flat and that
Columbus or anyone had to challenge the Church and prove it is innacurate.
Magellan did give the world a more accurate idea of how large the Earth was
and what’s its connection to the ocean (just see Ptolemean map wherein the
people before the Age of Discoveries thought that the land stretched from
Central-Southern Africa to Southeast Asia closing the oceans with a “Terra
Australis” and that the oceans around the west, North and East of the world
were actually a single “Ocean Sea” as Greek myth put it but Ptolemy didn’t even
see that the earth is all surrounded by the ocean unlike to the Greek myths who
did see it). Although Ptolemy put his maps in a flat earth model, his text on
geography makes clear that this looks better on flat paper and not a statement
on earth shape as believed by people then. He showed that oceans, unlike
what people then thought, covered most of the globe (which Greek mythology
and Ptolemy suspected, but greatly underestimated (even with new unknown
land masses). The enormity of the Pacific Ocean, the connection between
Pacific and Atlantic (now called “Strait of Magellan”), as well as the difference in
time as you travelled great distances (as the crew kept track of everyday log for
3 years wherein they first thought that they arrived back on Spain on July 9,
1522 but it was July 10, 1522 as they had gained a day due to the fact that time
zones changed as they travelled westward) were first noticed by this first
voyage.
Pigafetta's work is important not only as a source of information about
the voyage itself but also includes an early Western description of the people
and languages of the Philippines. Approximately 240 men who set out with
Magellan, Pigafetta was one of the 18 people who returned to Spain. The
voyage contributed to Europeans' knowledge of the universe and has marked
the worlds of space exploration and astronomy to this day. While crossing the
Magellan Strait, the explorer and his crew observed two galaxies visible to the
naked eye from the southern hemisphere, now known as the Magellanic
Clouds.
It established commercial contacts between East and West that
remained for centuries. It also promoted the exchange of multiple sorts of
experiences (scientific, cultural, and religion). Huge areas of America and Asia
where known and visited afterwards by Europeans thanks to the maps made
during this voyage.