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2 unusual facts about Pigafetta


Jacques-Nicolas Bellin

In 1789, Augustinian Carlo Amoretti, Italian Encyclopedist and librarian of Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, discovered the authentic Italian manuscript of Antonio Pigafetta among the scattered holdings of the library.

Largely with the appearance of the eyewitness account of Ginés de Mafra, the only seaman in Magellan's fleet to return to Mazaua, whose testimony reveals a concrete, measurable description of Mazaua, the skein starting from the garbled version of Pigafetta by Ramusio to the mishandling by Combés to Bellin and finally to Amoretti has been unraveled: Pigafetta's Gatighan is Bellin's Limasava.


Dimasaua

The precise story, as told by Antonio Pigafetta and the other witnesses, is the fleet had anchored at a tiny—about 3,930 hectares according to Ginés de Mafra--island-port named Mazaua which The Genoese Pilot said was at latitude 9° north, locating the skerry in Mindanao.

Following the route earlier traced, the placename points to Pigafetta's Gatighan which is located by Francisco Albo, the pilot who brought Victoria back to Seville, at 10° north latitude just one nautical mile (1.9 km) above the tip of today's Limasawa.


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