Getting our Philippine history right after 500 years – Part 11

In 1522, when Antonio Pigafetta got back from the Magellanic voyage, his manuscript for its official chronicles drew not even lukewarm comment nor interest from King Charles 5th when he personally presented it. What worsened matters was that his captain-general, about whom he had written the manuscript, had been killed in the Battle of Mactan and thus failed to accomplish his primary mission for the Spanish sovereign.

To better understand Pigafetta's predicament, recall that within 45 days after the chronicler's return to Spain on September 8, Maximilianus Transylvanus, a royal courtier and secretary to the Roman Emperor Charles 5th, had already appropriated Pigaffeta's chronicles for his Latin tract "De Moluccis Insulis" from Peter Martyr d'Anghiera's abridgment in "De orbe novo decades" ("Decades of the New World").