Pigafetta, Filippo, 1533-1604

Filippo Pigafetta (1533–1604) was a Venetian mathematician and explorer. Pigafetta's Relatione del reame del Congo (A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Countries) 1591 was translated into English, Latin (as Regnum Congo), French, Dutch and German. In it Pigafetta explains that he was ordered by Pope Sixtus V to transcribe the account of Duarte Lopez, a Portuguese trader who had spent twelve years in the Congo. Lopez had hoped that the pope would give him support in his mission to the Congolese, but this was not forthcoming: he returned to Africa, and was not heard from again. Lopez's narrative gives a detailed account of his voyage on his uncle's ship, and the history and geography of the kingdom of Congo and its six administrative regions under the rule of its king (named by Lopez 'Don Alvarez'). The account demonstrates the extent of Portuguese exploration across West Central Africa in the sixteenth century, of which later explorers were unaware. In 1608 Pigafetta published an Italian version of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum of Abraham Ortelius.