Enrique of Malacca – Sources and Resources



Opening pages of a Pigafetta manuscript.
Opening pages of an Antonio Pigafetta manuscript.

Updated 03/06/23

Contemporary Sources

Most of the contemporary writings about the Magellan-Elcano expedition are available online, translated into English and for free. These include the accounts of Antonio Pigafetta and others who survived the voyage and Maximilian of Transylvania, who interviewed survivors. Here are links to many of them. (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

Cost of Magellan’s Fleet

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


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.


Sir John Mandeville

The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, a medieval travelogue largely borrowed from sources including the Italian missionary-explorer Odoric of Pordenone (1286–1331). Fanciful, it is a window into the mind of Medieval Europeans as they set out to "discover" the world. The full book is available in multiple formats at Gutenberg.org.  



Ferdinand Magellan Biographies 


Guillemard.

The Life of Ferdinand Magellan, and the First Circumnavigation of the Globe. 1480-1521.

The life of Ferdinand Magellan and the first circumnavigation of the globe: 1480-1521. Guillemard’s biography of Ferdinand Magellan offers a richly told narrative for the day and has been used as at least a checkpoint by recent biographers. Find multiple digital versions at the Internet Archive here:

by F. H. H. (Francis Henry Hill) Guillemard. (1891).


The Story of Magellan and the Discovery of the Philippines

By Hezekiah Butterworth (1899).


By Charles H. L. (Charles Haven Ladd) Johnston (1917).


Southeast Asia

Ma Huan
Ma Huan, Ying-yai Sheng-lan (瀛涯勝覽, “Overall Survey of the Oceans Shores”), 1433. Translated from the Chinese text with introduction, notes, and appendices by J. V. G. Mills. Cambridge University Press / Hakluyt Society, 1970. The Chinese voyager and chronicler Ma Huan compiled a rich history of the Ming Treasure Voyages led by the admiral Zheng He, which helped establish a new age of trade around the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. Ma Huan is a key source for information on early Malacca. The work is available free in multiple formats including downloadable PDF at archive.org.




Editor’s note: Originally published 9/14/22. I will continue to update this page with links and resources.

(C) 2023, by John Sailors. All rights reserved.




Maps
• Ptolemy World Map
• Fra Mauro Map
• Cantino Planisphere
• Contarini-Rosseli Map
• Johannes Ruysch World Map


Learn more about Enrique of Malacca:


Frequently Asked Questions
• Who was Enrique of Malacca? (History/Biography)
• What was Enrique of Malacca’s Real Name
• What was Enrique of Malacca’s Cause of Death?
• Was Enrique First to Circumnavigate the Earth?
• Where was Enrique of Malacca from?
• Was Enrique of Malacca Filipino?




People interested in Enrique of Malacca FAQs may also be interested in our profiles.


Enrique's Voyage Profiles


On March 28, 1521, Enrique of Malacca became the first person to complete a linguistic circumnavigation of the globe—he traveled so far in one direction that he reached a point where his language was spoken. Enrique’s journey began a decade earlier following the sack of Malacca, when he became a slave of Ferdinand Magellan. Read more.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles V Backs Magellan's Armada

Ferdinand Magellan’s Armada de Molucca was financed by Carlos I (1500–1558), the newly crowned king of a unified Castile and Aragon. Carlos was an eighteen-year-old Habsburg from Flanders who barely spoke Spanish. Between the time he agreed to back Magellan's expedition and its departure, he became Charles V, Holy Roman emperor, and archduke of Austria.   Read More.

Magellan's Real Circumnavigation, Enrique of Malacca Taken as Slave (Magellan, Part 1)

Schoolchildren around the world are taught the name Ferdinand Magellan[1]—“the first person to circumnavigate the globe”—many in grade school and again high school. But few people know Magellan's story, that he was killed in the Philippines halfway through that circumnavigation, and moreover, that he still came within 2,600 kilometers of fully circling the earth. Read more.

For Ferdinand Magellan, life moved swiftly from tropical amphibious combat in Southeast Asia to land war on horseback in North Africa. Magellan returned to Lisbon in 1512 or 1513, bringing with him Enrique, the slave he claimed at Malacca. Unfortunately, the Malay teenager was about all the fortune Magellan collected in seven years’ service in India. Magellan invested the riches he collected in a trade deal that went sour, a slap in the face he learned of on return to Lisbon … Read more.


Spain's King Charles named Magellan captain-general of the Armada de Molucca, but from the start he had to enforce his authority with an iron hand. In Asia a decade earlier Magellan had been more soldier than sailor. Now as commander of a naval fleet, Magellan relied on his military fleet background to maintain control of his own armada. Read more.


Juan de Cartagena Leads Mutiny Against Magellan


Juan de Cartagena, a native of Burgos, was the original captain of the San Antonio and one of the human obstacles Ferdinand Magellan had to overcome on the expedition. History labels Magellan and Columbus and other ship captains as “explorers” and “navigators.” Cartagena is identified as “an accountant and a ship captain” [1], not quite the swashbuckling image that inspires fifth graders in history class.   Read more.









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Learn more about Enrique at EnriqueOfMalacca.com.