| In November 2022, Dr Matteo Salonia gave a public talk on the age of European explorations in collaboration with Ningbo Library. 2022 marks the 500th anniversary of the Magellan-Elcano voyage (1519-1522), the first circumnavigation of the world. In his talk, Dr. Salonia introduced the context of this voyage, stressing the political rivalry between the Iberian kingdoms of Castile and Portugal, the discoveries of complex oceanic currents and winds, and the mapping of the African coast. The opening and integration of the Atlantic world was the true springboard of early modern globalization, and Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition was in a sense the crowning achievement of this process, as it found the Western strait to the ‘the Indies’ and China. The core of the presentation focused on Magellan’s voyage, especially its objectives, achievements, and expansion of geographic knowledge, giving voice to some of the people writing about it at the time, such as the Italian knight Antonio Pigafetta. Pigafetta was among the few survivors of the expedition, and his account was a literary masterpiece that introduced images of Asia into 16th-century Europe and spread the news that all the oceans of the world are one. |
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