The First Voyage Round the World, by Magellan

This richly annotated scholarly volume reconstructs Ferdinand Magellan's first circumnavigation through Pigafetta's eyewitness narrative, contemporary accounts, maps, logs, letters, and other original documents. It opens with a forceful defense of Magellan's reputation, set against the political rivalry of Portugal and Spain and the high stakes of the spice trade, where the location and ownership of the Moluccas were still uncertain. The introduction argues that Magellan's break with Portugal arose from injury, neglect, and a refusal of proper reward, not mere ambition, and places his service to Spain within a broader legal and moral debate over loyalty, emigration, naturalization, and the right to renounce allegiance. Drawing on Osorio, Vattel, Condorcet, and historical precedents of lawful expatriation, the text weighs honor against treason and presents Magellan's choice as a defensible act of conscience. It then turns to the voyage itself: repairs, storms, dangerous capes, captured pilots, and tense encounters with local vessels, alongside vivid observations of cinnamon, pearls, gold, wildlife, and the eerie "walking leaves." As the expedition presses through the western Pacific toward Mindanao, Sarangani, and the Moluccas, commerce, diplomacy, and peril drive the story of one of maritime history's greatest adventures. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.