Vittorio Russo – Pigafetta e Magellano. Un viaggio alla fine del mondo

introduction by Franco Cardini

The richly illustrated text traces the extraordinary life of the Vicenza man-at-arms. Driven by the desire for adventure, Pigafetta took part in the expedition to circumnavigate the globe led by the famous Magellan. He was one of the very few to complete the undertaking, which lasted three years (1519-1522), which he later admirably described in the Report of the first voyage around the world, one of the most valuable contributions to the geographical discoveries of the sixteenth century.

THE BOOK: Antonio Pigafetta was the first man to circumnavigate the globe. Of the 265 sailors who left Spain in 1519, only 18 returned, having sailed more than 100,000 kilometers. The Vicenza native had the extraordinary merit of writing the detailed diary that makes him the first author of travel literature and without which the events of that adventure would be only a nuanced legend. Magellan himself, who was unable to complete the journey, saw his fame increase thanks to this work.
Drawing on a large number of sources, Vittorio Russo reconstructs the figure of this extraordinary and multifaceted character, a man-at-arms, a cartographer, a navigator animated by a voracious curiosity for everything that fell under his gaze, a passionate writer. The text is enriched by historical maps and biographies of the protagonists of the expedition. And the amazement of the one who went to discover the unknown world becomes today the amazement of the reader who discovers these pages of history.

Vittorio Russo A long-time captain for decades, he is a journalist, traveler and writer. He has published research and studies on the origins of religions and Christianity, including The Historical Jesus (1978) and The Door of Slender Dreams (2017). His travels have given rise to books that intertwine geography, myth and history, such as India mystical and mysterious (2008), Trans-Siberian (Sandro Teti Editore, 2017) and Alexander the Great’s Uzbekistan (Sandro Teti Editore, 2019).