Talk:Jacques N. Bellin

Jacques N. Bellin was a towering figure of the 18th and 19th centuries. His repute and influence spilled over into the 20th century. The monumental 55-vols. The Philippine Islands, Emma Blair and James A. Robertson, ed.(Cleveland, Ohio, 1903-1909) used almost a dozen charts and maps of Bellin.

The 1734 map of the Philippines that Bellin copied from Fr. Pedro Murillo Velarde, S.J., ironically was the one cited by Carlo Amoretti who transcribed the handwritten Italian manuscript of Antonio Pigafetta which he published with the title ''Primo viaggio intorno al globo terracqueo ossia ragguaglio della navigazione alle Indie orientali per la via d'occidente fatta dal cavaliere Antonio Pigafetta patrizio vicentino sulla squadra del capit. Magaglianes negli anni 1519-1522 ora pubblicato per la prima volta, tratto da un codice MS. della Biblioteca Ambrosiana di Milano e corredato di note da C. Amoretti...con un transunto del Trattato di Navigazione dello stesso autore...'' Milan, 1800. In a footnote Amoretti surmised that the isle south of Leyte named Limasawa may be Mazaua, port of Magellan's Armada de Molucca from March 28 to April 4, 1521. Mazaua was also the anchorage of the crippled galeota piloted by Ginés de Mafra in 1543. Amoretti, librarian of Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan, based his assertion mainly on the phonetic resemblance. He had no knowledge the word "Limasawa" was an invented word by a Spanish missionary, Fr. Francisco Combés, who had not read a single eyewitness account of Magellan's voyage and who in fact dismissed a faithful account of the Mazaua incident by Antonio de Herrera. Combés relied instead on Gian Battista Ramusio's translation of Antonio Pigafetta's relation of the first circumnavigation. In his hopelessly garbled retranslation back to the original Italian from a French text, Ramusio wrote the anchorage was 1521 Butuan in Mindanao", southern Philippines. In the 16th century and up to today, Butuan was never an island.

More to the point, unknown to both Combés and Amoretti, Limasawa has no anchorage. Here is the description of the Philippine Coast Pilot: "[Limasawa] is fringed by a narrow, steep-to reef, off which the depths ar too great to afford anchorage for large vessels."

Carlos Amoretti argued that Limasawa and Mazaua are in Pigafeta's latitude 9° 40” North. Limasawa is actually at 9° 56" N latitude. Mazaua was located by Francisco Albo, the expert navigator in Magellan's fleet, at 9° 20” N, and by The Genoese Pilot at 9° N. Which of the three latitudes is more likely correct? Pigafetta and Albo wrote that from Mazaua to 10° N, in the latitude of Gatighan, the way station where Magellan's fleet made a very brief stopover, it took them 20 leagues or 80 nautical miles of sailing to reach. Limasawa at 9° 56” N is just 4 nautical miles from 10° N. Adjusting for errors in estimating distance traveled, the more correct latitude for Mazaua is The Genoese Pilot's 9° N.

Historians and navigation scholars who followed in the wake of Amoretti uncritically adopted Amoretti's maladroit dictum. In the literature on the Mazaua landfall issue the names of Jacques N. Bellin and Carlo Amoretti will not be seen. The paper I read before The Society for the History of Discoveries on October 13, 2000 at the U.S. Library of Congress was the first time these two names were linked to the issue. The text of the paper minus the illustrations and graphics which powerfully support the arguments may be accessed at http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MagellansPortMazaua/files/Mazaua%20Historiography/Vicente C. de Jesus 09:42, 20 August 2007 (UTC)