author
Ambrogio Contarini
1429–1499
A Venetian merchant and diplomat whose journey to Persia became one of the liveliest travel accounts of the 1400s. His writing offers a rare first-hand look at long-distance travel, diplomacy, and court life between Europe and Iran in the late medieval world.
1 Audiobook
Travels to Tana and Persia : A narrative of Italian travels in Persia, in the 15th and 16th centuries
by Giosofat Barbaro, Ambrogio Contarini
About the author
Born into the patrician Contarini family of Venice, he spent part of his early life as a merchant in Constantinople. After war broke out between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, he left the city and later served his republic in both military and diplomatic roles.
He is best remembered for the embassy that sent him overland to the court of Uzun Hasan, ruler of the Aq Qoyunlu state in Persia. The journey was difficult and dangerous, but it gave him material for the travel narrative that made his name endure.
That account, often known as Viaggio al signor Usun Hassan re di Persia, is valued not just as a record of one mission, but as a vivid eyewitness portrait of lands, customs, and politics in the 15th century. For modern readers, it remains an engaging window into the world of Renaissance Venice and its far-reaching connections.