Leggere la prima circumnavigazione del mondo. Appunti dopo un centenario

The fifth centenary of the first circumnavigation of the world has generated a predictable bibliographic proliferation about the voyage of Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano. In this article an attempt is made to focus on some of the issues crucial to the study of those events and their effects; the perspective employed moves from the philological investigation of the sources. The main aspects considered are the first dissemination of the news concerning the enterprise; the philological issues related to the most important texts; the socio-economic contexts and cultural premises at the origin of the expedition; the survival of some false myths; and the memory of the circumnavigation in the places explored (particularly in the Philippines).