Author: Antonio Pigafetta
Alternate names: Marco Antonio Pigafetta
Born: c. 1480
Died: c. 1531
Bio: Antonio Pigafetta (c. 1491 – c. 1531) was an Italian scholar and explorer from the Republic of Venice. He joined the expedition to the Spice Islands led by explorer Ferdinand Magellan under the flag of King Charles I of Spain and, after Magellan's death in the Philippines, the subsequent voyage around the world. During the expedition, he served as Magellan's assistant and kept an accurate journal which later assisted him in translating the Cebuano language. It is the first recorded document concerning the language.

Pigafetta was one of the 18 men who returned to Spain in 1522, under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, out of the approximately 240 who set out three years earlier. These men completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Pigafetta's surviving journal is the source for much of what is known about Magellan and Elcano's voyage.

At least one warship of the Italian Navy, a destroyer of the *Navigatori* class, was named after him in 1931. 

**Source**: [Antonio Pigafetta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonio_Pigafetta) on Wikipedia.