# - Della Valle, Pietro (1586-1652).

entitled "Luoghi d'alloggiamento in tutta la peregrination maggiore di Pietro Della Valle, cominciata in Roma a gli 11 d'Aprile 1614 e che fin adesso ancor dura", being his account of the places he stayed at during his travels up to 1623, evidently comprising the start and conclusion of a complete itinerary, including the Hellespont ("Abydo"), Constantinople (with descriptions of the Dardanelles and Scutari, including the seraglio), the Nile, Cairo (including the pyramids and mummies of Egypt), the Monastery of St Catherine at Mount Sinai, Il Tor, Gaza and Palestine, Damascus (discussing early Hebrew and Christian scripts) and Aleppo in 1615 & 1616, and later, in 1623, of India, including Cambaia, the river Mehi, Surat, and of his marriage to a Christian girl in Baghdad, Sitti Maáni Gioerida; Della Valle describes the limitations of Italian orthography in rendering Arab and Persian place-names, gives (in tabular form) the latitudes of various places in Persia according to his reckoning and that of Don Garcia de Silva y Figueroa and the Scots traveller George Strachan, and discusses at length the meaning and derivation of the title and names of his wife Maáni ("Le Intelligenze celesti"), in Italian, with a few words written in Persian and Chaldean script, ending his account at Goa ("...citta principale, e sede del Vicirè dell' India dove arrivai a.8. d'Aprile 1623, e dove al presente mi trovo, e queste cose ho scritto hoggi li 13.di Maggio 1623. Fine de' miei viaggi sin qui..."); the separate leaf includes Della Valle's earlier autograph draft journal of his expedition [against North African Corsairs] on the Genoese vessel "La Vittoria" from Naples, via Sicily, to Malta and Faro and back (1 August to 24 October [?1612]), including astronomical observations and the names of some men he encountered



17 pages, agenda 4to (310 x 105mm.), comprising four folio leaves, foliated 1-4 and 17-20 and one separate leaf, watermark of 3 hats (cf. Heawood 2593), mainly Goa, 13 May 1623, some oxidization of the ink causing a few holes in the separate leaf

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autograph manuscript of the famous seventeenth-century traveller in egypt, the levant and india. such manuscripts are of the greatest rarity at auction.

Pietro della Valle was one of the most remarkable travellers of the seventeenth century; he was also a leading figure in the cultural life of his age. Unlike most voyagers of the time, he was motivated by ethnographical, linguistic and artistic matters, rather than trade, conquest or missionary zeal. He signs himself here as "il pellegrino" (the pilgrim), but in the largely secular sense of seeking to broaden his aristocratic classical education by embracing the civilizations of the East - including eventually an eighteen-year-old girl from a Christian, Nestorian, community in Baghdad, whom he married in 1616 and whose death in childbirth in 1623 precipitated his return to Italy.

Della Valle first traces his voyage from Rome to Constantinople via Ancona, Bologna, Ferrara and Venice across to observe the great ruins of Troy ("...per dire meglio Campos ubi Troia fuit e vedute le gran ruine di quella famosa Città...") and the Hellespont, pointing out Abydos and Sestos, made famous by the tale of Hero & Leander. He arrived at Constantinople on 15 August 1614 and describes the opening of the Dardanelles at the Black Sea, and Scutari 

..una continuata habitatione di palazzi, giardini, e Ville quali a guisa di borghi. Qual canale di 18 miglia angustissimo tra l'Europa e l'Asia, e che si gira spesso a serpe, onde chi naviga per quello non ne vede la bocca e par sempre d'andar tra monti a finir in qualche ridosso...Vidi anco intorno a Costant[inopo]li nella bocca del mar negro la Colonna di Pompeo puntata sopra uno scoglio in memoria della vittoria havuta dell'Corsari...

He describes his voyages as well as the cities he visited, including travelling with camels, which he judges much slower and more troublesome than horses. There is a dramatic description of crossing the River Mehi in India, using elephants and local oxen, made difficult by the converging currents from the river and the sea-water. Elsewhere he reports cultural, linguistic and artistic curiosities of the places he visits, often sending back examples of his finds to Italy. Many are still conserved in museums in Rome and Dresden.

...Abu-sir Villa, tra le Piramidi e'l deserto, o mare d'arena... dove si trovano le Mumie quali non sono huomini affogati per disgratia nell'arena, come crede il volgo. ma son corpi morti de gl'Egittij antichissimi, conditi con certi bitumi e sotterrati in tombe fatta a posta piu di .50. palmi sotto terra in quella arena, fatte come pozzi; in uno di quali io stesso volsi calare e ne cavai fuori due o tre Mumie integre, bellissime, adorne di pitture e miniature d'oro, con sigilli di piombo, che si vede esser stati corpi d'huomini grandi, e le mandai in Italia, con molte altre curiosità di quella terra...[December 1615]

Della Valle's travelogues were written and published, as a series of  letters, in Viaggi... descritti da lui medesimo in 54 lettere familiari (Rome, 1650-1658), and went through many editions. These letters were in reality whole sections of a carefully-kept journal. The present itinerary, of which we have the sections dealing with Egypt, Palestine, Damascus and India, was written in 1623 at the behest of the Jesuit Cristoforo Brono (or Boro), as the mere "Preludio" for "una ampia Relatione di tutti i miei viaggi, piena d'infinite curiosità", most of which was only published after his death. His original journal, covering the period 1616-1626, is in the Biblioteca Apostolica in the Vatican; a few pages are accessible online and are in a similar format to this manuscript. For other examples of Della Valle's hand, please see Remo Giazotto, Il grande viaggo di Pietro Della Valle "il Pellegrino" (1612-1626), Rome, 1988, p.112, 144ff.