author
Giosofat Barbaro
1413–1494
A Venetian diplomat and merchant whose journeys carried him from the Black Sea to Persia, he left behind vivid travel accounts from a world in motion. His writing opens a window onto trade, politics, and long-distance travel in the fifteenth century.
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 in Venice in 1413, Giosofat Barbaro was a patrician, merchant, diplomat, explorer, and travel writer from the prominent Barbaro family. He is remembered for traveling far more widely than most Europeans of his time, with journeys that took him to the Black Sea region, the eastern Mediterranean, and Persia.
As a merchant, he spent many years in Tana on the Sea of Azov, where he observed local trade, geography, and customs at close range. Later, the Venetian state sent him on diplomatic missions, including an embassy to the court of Uzun Hasan in Persia, where Venice hoped to build alliances against the Ottoman Empire.
Barbaro's lasting fame comes from the travel narratives he left behind. Written from firsthand experience, they are valued not just as adventure stories but as detailed records of the people, places, and political tensions of the fifteenth century.