The First Voyage around the World is also a remarkably accurate ethnographic and geographical account of the circumnavigation, and one that has earned its reputation among modern historiographers and students of the early contacts between Europe and the East Indies.

A biography of the Portuguese sea captain who set sail from Spain in 1519 and successfully sailed around the world to prove that the world is not only round but circumnavigable.

“...a fundamental work for anyone who desires both the English version of the story of this path-breaking voyage and an up-to-date evaluation of the scholarly production about the voyage that has appeared during the last four and a half centuries.”—Lewis Hanke, Columbia University Today when men orbit the globe in a few minutes, it is difficult to imagine the awe that accompanied the news of the three years’ voyage completing man’s first circumnavigation of the earth. Wonder and amazement marked the contemporary accounts of Magellan’s hazardous adventure; and now the three best accounts have been gathered into one volume and provided with an introduction and commentary based on the most accurate historical information available by an eminent scholar of Hispanic studies. Included are translations of the accounts by Antonio Pigafetta, one of the eighteen actual survivors of the 241 who undertook the voyage; by the secretary of Emperor Charles V, Maximilian of Transylvania, who wrote a long report based on first-hand accounts to his father, the Cardinal of Salzburg; and by Gaspar Correa, a Portuguese historian, who twenty years later wrote of the voyage mixing fact with fanciful tales of the Far East. Several of the maps prepared for this edition are in the style of the period and represent conceptions of the world as seen by cartographers and navigators at the beginning of the Age of Discovery.

On 10 August 1519, five ships departed from Seville for what was to become the first circumnavigation of the globe. Linked by fame to the name of its captain, Magellan, much of the expedition is known through the travelogue of one of the few crew members who returned to Spain, Antonio Pigafetta. A narrative and cartographic record of the journey (including 23 hand-drawn watercolour charts) from Patagonia to Indonesia, from the Philippines to the Cape of Good Hope, Pigafetta's The First Voyage around the World is a classic of discovery and exploration literature. This volume is based on the critical edition by Antonio Canova. It includes an extensive introduction to the work and generous annotations by Theodore J. Cachey Jr who discusses the marvelous elements of the story through allusions to Magellan's travels made by writers as diverse as Shakespeare and Gabriel García Márquez. However, Cachey is careful to point out that Pigafetta's book is far from just a marvel-filled travel narrative. The First Voyage around the World is also a remarkably accurate ethnographic and geographical account of the circumnavigation, and one that has earned its reputation among modern historiographers and students of the early contacts between Europe and the East Indies. Expertly presented and handsomely illustrated, this edition of Pigafetta's classic travelogue is sure to enlighten new readers and invigorate the imagination as the story has done since it first appeared.