Filippo Pigafetta

Filippo Pigafetta (1533–1604) was an Italian mathematician and explorer. His Relatione del reame dei 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.

Quotes

• In the great day of punishments and rewards, our Saviour, of all the works which man in this world is expected to do, will not demand an account of any in comparison with those which relate to mercy, and the pious care and protection of the needy. And truly it seems innate in the human heart, and common even to uncivilized nations to have compassion on the afflicted and infirm, and to act towards them as benefactors.
  • Relatione del reame dei Congo (1591), Dedication, to Antonio Migliore (tr. Margarite Hutchinson)

External links

• Abraham Hartwell (tr.), A Report of the Kingdome of Congo, a Region of Africa, and of the Countries That Border Rounde About the Same (London: Printed by Iohn Wolfe, 1597)

• Margarite Hutchinson (tr.), A Report of the Kingdom of Congo and of the Surrounding Countries (New York: Negro Universities Press, 1967)