[BARBARO, Giosafat, et al.]

£3,750 · Offered by Sokol Books

Second and much better printed (Renouard 134:18) edition of this collection of travel narratives, edited by Aldo Manuzio. The work includes the accounts of seven adventurous voyages to the East made by Venetian merchants and diplomats during the XV and XVI centuries. The collection begins with the two travels of Giosafat Barbaro (1413-1494) to Tana and to Persia. Tana was a major commercial emporium of the Serenissima near the Sea of Azov where Barbaro spent 15 years. When the Tatars advanced on Tana in 1438, he went as an emissary to the Khan to persuade him not to attack: in this occasion, he came to know the Tatars and their customs. During the Venetian conflict with the Ottomans, he was sent as ambassador to Persia, and his accounts are considered the first among those of Venetian travellers to provide authentic information regarding this region and its inhabitants. Barbaro s curiosity for unfamiliar places brought him to extensively visit Georgia and Crimea, the cities around Black Sea, the ruins of Persepolis and of Pasargadae, as well as to organise an expedition to dig up a treasure in Transcaucasia. Much of the information he provides regarding the khanate of the Great Horde, Giordania and Persia cannot be found in any other sources. Ambrogio Contarini (1429-1499), nobleman and diplomat, is the author of the third narrative. Sent as a Venetian envoy to Persia in 1473, he was not successful in convincing the sovereign, Uzun Hasan, to attack the Ottomans. However, he r

• Binding: Hardcover

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