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<img src="https://cdn.kahimyang.com/resources-18/antonio-pigafetta-2.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Antonio Pigafetta" />
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(Antonio Pigafetta)
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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.
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Pigafetta's exact year of birth is not known, with estimates ranging between 1480 and 1491. A birth year of 1491 would have made him around 30 years old during Magellan's expedition, which historians have considered more probable than an age close to 40. Pigafetta belonged to a rich family from 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 Knights of Rhodes at the beginning of the 16th century. Until 1519, he accompanied the papal nuncio, Monsignor Francesco Chieregati, to Spain.
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Pigafetta was one of the 18 men who made the complete trip, returning to Spain in 1522, under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, out of the approximately 240 who set out three years earlier. These men completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Others mutinied and returned in the first year. Pigafetta's surviving journal is the source for much of what is known about Magellan and Elcano's voyage.
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In Seville, Spain, Pigafetta heard of Magellan's planned expedition and decided to join, accepting the title of supernumerary (that exceeds the number) and a modest salary of 1,000 maravedís. During the voyage, which started in <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/2797/today-in-philippine-history-august-10-1519-fernando-de-magallanes-set-sail-from-seville-spain-with-5-small-vessels" class="news_link">August 10, 1519</a>, 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 valuable 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.
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Pigafetta was wounded on Mactan in the Philippines, where <a href="https://kahimyang.com/kauswagan/articles/1096/today-in-philippine-history-april-27-1521-ferdinand-magellan-was-killed-by-warriors-of-lapu-lapu" class="news_link">Magellan was killed</a> in the Battle of Mactan in April 1521. Nevertheless, he recovered and was among the 18 who accompanied Juan Sebastián Elcano on board the Victoria on the return voyage to Spain.
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Magellan's defeat in Mactan delayed the  Spanish occupation of the islands by over 40 years.
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Upon reaching port in Sanlúcar de Barrameda in the province of Cadiz, Spain 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. The original document was not preserved.
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Antonio Pigafetta, Magellan's assistant and chronicler