Carlo Amoretti - Conservator, Discoverer of Pigafetta

Conservator, Discoverer of Pigafetta

He became a conservator, officially called "Dottori del Collegio Ambrosiano", in 1797 of the Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Ambrosian Library) at Milan which is said to be the first public library in Europe having first opened its door to the public in 1609. It was as conservator at the library that the world of exploration history was turned on its head by this paleographer. James Alexander Robertson wrongly identified him as the "prefect" or officer in charge of the Ambrosiana library, an error repeated by a few who have referred to Amoretti although as far as can be ascertained not one has detected prior to this article that Amoretti is the first to assert the Limasawa=Mazaua equation. Filipino religious historiographer Miguel A. Bernad mistakenly identified Amoretti as curator of the library.

In 1797 Amoretti discovered at the Biblioteca the lost Italian manuscript of Pigafetta on Magellan's voyage, considered by most Magellan scholars as the oldest of four extant manuscripts and the most complete, although there is consensus among paleographic scholars this and all surviving codices are mere copies of an original or originals now deemed forever lost. The three other extant manuscripts are all in French of which two are conserved at the Bibliothèque Nationale, MSS 5650 and 24224, the last, viewed as the most "princely" of all, is conserved at the Beinecke Library of the Yale University Library, in the United States.