Abstract
The fi fth centenary of the First Circumnavigation of the World makes us
reconsider some features of this crucial event. The expedition was
aimed to find an alternative route to the Spice Islands, controlled by the
Portugueses. Despite some modern misinterpretations, there was no need
to demonstrate that the Earth was round. The most important chronicle
of the travel was written by Antonio Pigafetta, a man from Vicenza: his
Relazione, though abridged and badly translated into French, conveyed the
fi rst information about the newfound lands to the Europeans. Some of his
errors survived for a long time in the Old World’s collective imagination.
This is the case of the so-called Patagonian giants, who kept a firm place in
the travelogues for more than two centuries, and whose existence eventually
became a matter of serious dispute in the Age of the Enlightenment. Sadly,
the greed for land and the merciless policy of Argentina and Chile did not
spare the native Patagonian tribes, which had to face extinction at the end of
the 19th century.
Titolo tradotto del contributo | [Autom. eng. transl.] Difficult story of a circumnavigation of the world |
---|---|
Lingua originale | Italian |
Titolo della pubblicazione ospite | Il viaggio. Scoprire ed essere scoperti |
Pagine | 5-20 |
Numero di pagine | 16 |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2021 |
Keywords
- First circumnavigation of the world (1519-1522)