Antonio Pigafetta - Return

Return

Pigafetta was wounded on Mactan in the Philippines, where Magellan was killed. Nevertheless, he recovered and was among the 18 who accompanied Juan Sebastián Elcano on board the Victoria, on the return voyage to Spain.

Upon reaching port in Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Province of Cadiz) in September 1522, three years after his departure, Pigafetta returned to the Republic of Venice. He related his experiences in Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (Report on the First Voyage Around the World), which was composed in Italian. Although parts were published in Paris in 1525, the manuscript was not published in its entirety until the late eighteenth century. The original document was not preserved.

It was not through Antonio Pigafetta's writings that Europeans first learned of the circumnavigation of the globe. Rather, it was through an account written by Maximilianus Transylvanus, which was published in 1523. Transylvanus had been instructed to interview some of the survivors of the voyage when Magellan’s surviving ship Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522. After Magellan's voyage, Pigafetta utilized the connections he had made prior to the voyage with the Knights of Rhodes to achieve membership in the order.