England was aware of the Pacific centuries before Banks sailed 

 with Cook. In 1 555, Richard Eden furnished the first collection of 

 voyages in English, The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West 

 India. Richard Hakluyt's The Navigations, Voyages, and Discov- 



er 



1600) became an indispen- 



sable source of knowledge about the still-mysterious parts of the 

 globe. 



Before these compilations appeared, Antonio Pigafetta's jour- 



Magell 



1522) 



M 



n 



(Charles V of Spain) in 1 522 and then, in oral, written and printed 

 form, became known all over Europe. 



Pigafetta's mention of bark cloth in the Pacific may be the 

 earliest detailed available by a European and, as such, must be 

 regarded as significant. His Relation remains the only surviving 

 record by an eyewitness of Magellan's voyage. Magellan's own 

 journal and the records of those who succeeded him in command 

 after his death in the Philippines have never come to light. 



A young Italian who describes himself as "Patrician of Vicenza 

 [therefore a Venetian citizen] and Knight of Rhodes", Pigafetta 

 went to Spain in 1 5 19 in the suite of the Papal Ambassador to the 

 Court of Spain. Hearing of the plans for Magellan's voyage and 

 wanting "to see the great and wonderful things of the Ocean Sea", 

 he obtained permission from both King Charles V and the 

 Ambassador to accompany Magellan as a volunteer. He sailed in 

 the flagship, Trinidad, September 20, 1 5 1 9, and returned to Spain 

 in Victoria (the only ship to return) September 26, 1 522. Upon his 

 return, he presented to the King "a book written by my hand 

 treating of all the things that had occurred day by day on our 

 voyage." In March 1523 he amplified this account to his full 

 Relation. 



The source from which all four extant manuscripts — three in 

 French, one in Italian— derive, is the copy of this Relation that he 

 presented to the Grand Master of the Order of St. John in 1 525. 



Pigafetta, then in his thirties, was well equipped for his voyage. 

 He had read travel books, including Marco Polo's account of his 

 travels (but whether in manuscript or a printed book is not clear); 



60 



