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| Opening pages of an Antonio Pigafetta manuscript. (Source.) |
Updated 07/25/24
Most of the contemporary writings about the Magellan-Elcano expedition are available online, translated into English and freely available in multiple digital formats. In addition to translations of Antonio Pigafetta's journal, the primary source of information for the Magellan expedition, are accounts of Francisco Albo, who maintained a daily navigational log over a three-year voyage, and other eyewitnesses, including a report by Maximilian of Transylvania, who interviewed survivors. Here are current links to some, and more coming soon.
Antonio Pigafetta
Journal of Magellan’s Voyage. The original manuscript, believed to be written in a mixture of Italian and Castilian, has not survived. Four early copies were preserved, three in French and one in Italian. Pigafetta’s account gives us the bulk of what we know of the journey.
A digital copy of one of the French manuscripts is available online at Yale University Library, and at the Library of Congress.
An English translation by James Alexander Robertson (1873-1939) can be found in multiple formats at Gutenberg.com (in two parts). A translation of the Italian manuscript, it places the English next to the original Italian in two columns, paragraph by paragraph.
Another translation, by Henry E. J. Stanley (Lord Stanley of Aderley, 1802-1869) is online at WikiSource.org, one of several texts contained there in the book The First Voyage Around the World. The book also has accounts of other survivors and the letter from Maximilian the Transylvan, who interviewed the survivors. Multiple digital formats are available.
Antonio Pigafetta and other contemporary writers. The First Voyage Round the World. Translated and edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley. From WikiSource.org (multiple formats). This comprehensive collection of contemporary writings about the first circumnavigation was first published in 1876 and includes the key sources from the time. It’s perhaps the single best collection.
• Introduction by Henry Edward John Stanley, translator and editor.
• The Genoese Pilot’s Account of Magellan’s Voyage
• Narrative of the Anonymous Portuguese
• Pigafetta’s Account of Magellan’s Voyage
• Pigafetta’s Treatise of Navigation
• Names of the First Circumnavigators
• Magellan’s Order of the Day in the Straits
• Letter of Maximilian, the Transylvan
• Log-Book of Francisco Alvo or Alvaro [Albo]
• Account of the “Trinity” and her Crew
• Account of the Mutiny in Port St. Julian; Gaspar Correa’s Account of the Voyage
• Appendix
• Index
(Part 1 of Pigafetta’s journal). Editor: Emma Helen Blair. Translator: James Alexander Robertson. This translation of one of the Italian manuscripts has Italian and English side by side. From Gutenberg.org (multiple formats). Part 2 of the manuscript: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/47927.
Duarte Barbosa
The Book of Duarte Barbosa (Portuguese: Livro de Duarte Barbosa). The Duarte Barbosa travelogue was an imperial guide detailing the riches found along the coasts of East Africa and India and beyond—alongside a callous outlook on Portuguese excesses in ports that refused to recognize the Portuguese king.
Historians originally credited this work to the Duarte Barbosa related to Ferdinand Magellan by marriage, a confidant of Magellan's who played a few big roles in the first circumnavigation and who was killed on Cebu days after Magellan's death at Mactan. But three Duarte Barbosas served the Portuguese in India and East Africa at the time the book was written.
More recent studies show that Barbosa the writer was likely not Magellan’s relation. Studies of the original Portuguese manuscript aim to one of the others. Read more on Duarte Barbosa here.
Several versions of Barbosa’s work exist, including an Italian version by Giovanni Battista Ramusio, a Spanish version, and an original Portuguese version. Historians have suggested that Magellan may have contributed to the book and that it may have been among documents and maps presented to Charles V when Magellan proposed the expedition.
An English translation by Mansel Longworth Dames is available in multiple digital formats at Internet Archive (archive.org): The Book Of Duarte Barbosa Vol. 1 and The Book Of Duarte Barbosa Vol. 2. This version includes an introduction by Dames detailing Duarte Barbosa’s history.
The Ramusio translation of Barbosa’s book was translated into English by Henry E. J. Stanley (Lord Stanley of Aderley, 1802-1869) in 1867. The book is available in multiple digital formats at Gutenberg.org. Stanley’s lengthy introduction includes comment on “the piracies of the Portuguese … told without any reticence, apparently without consciousness of their criminality …”
Here are full links:
A DESCRIPTION OF THE COASTS OF EAST AFRICA AND MALABAR IN THE BEGINNING OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY (Ramusio translation)
BY DUARTE BARBOSA, A PORTUGUESE
TRANSLATED BY THE HON. HENRY E. J. STANLEY.
Introduction by Henry Edward John Stanley, translator and editor.
From Gutenberg.com.
The Book Of Duarte Barbosa Vol. 1
by Dames, Mansel Longworth, Tr.
From Internet Archive / Archive.org.
The Book Of Duarte Barbosa Vol. 2
by Dames, Mansel Longworth, Tr.
From Internet Archive / Archive.org.
Gaspar Corrêa
Gaspar Corrêa (also Correia) 3,500-page Lendas da Índia (Legends of India) covers Portuguese maritime activity in India and Malacca from 1497 and 1550 including events that Ferdinand Magellan were involved in. Corrêa lived and worked in India for thirty-five years beginning around 1514. He served as secretary to Alfonso de Albuquerque from 1510–1515.
Links:
The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama and His Viceroyalty. From the Lendas de India, Gaspar Correa. Accompanied by original documents. Translated from the Portuguese with notes and an introduction by Henry E. J. Stanley.
• Available in PDF online at Hathi Trust Digital Library
Navarrete
"Given here is the complete Volume 4 English translation of Martin Fernandez de Navarrete’s Coleccion de Viages (Madrid, 1829). English translation using the online internet facility Google Translate is still ongoing. This particular Volume contains the reports on Ferdinand Magellan's Voyage to the East." Available in PDF at Academia.edu.
Bartholomew
Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands.
Written in Spanish by Bartholomew Leonardo de Argensola, Chaplain to the Empress, and Rector of Villahermosa (in 1609). Now Translated into English: And Illustrated with a Map and several Cuts (1708). CONTAINING, Their History, Ancient and Modern, Natural and Political: Their Description, Product, Religion, Government, Laws, Languages, Customs, Manners, Habits, Shape, and Inclinations of the Natives. With an Account of many other adjacent Islands, and several remarkable Voyages through the Strait of Magellan, and in other Parts.
Peter Martyr d'Anghera. De Orbe Novo, the eight Decades. Spanish historian Peter Martyr d'Anghera's (c. 1480–1534) work included a summary of Magellan's voyage, in chapter 7 of the fifth "decade." An English translation by MacNutt, Francis Augustus (1863-1927) was published in two volumes 1912 by G. P. Putnam's sons. The Magellan summary appears in volume 2. Both volumes are available in multiple formats at the Internet Archive.
Southeast Asia
Notes on Magellan Sources
Editor’s note: Originally published 9/14/22. I will continue to update this page with links and resources.
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