ABSTRACT

T h e r e have been many men who have devoted themselves to the investigation o f the things of this world, and by the aid of divers studies, journeys, and very exact relations, have endeavoured to accomplish their desire. Others, again, of more perspicacious understandings, to whom the earth has not sufficed, such as the Chaldeans and Phoenicians, have begun to traverse the highest regions of Heaven with careful observations and watchings ; from all which I know that each has gained most deserved and high praise from others and abundant satisfaction to themselves. Wherefore I, feel­ ing a very great desire for similar results, and leaving alone the Heavens as a burthen more suitable for the shoulders of Atlas and of Hercules, determined to investigate some small portion of this our terrestrial globe; and not having any

inclination (knowing myself to be of very slender understand­ ing) to arrive at my desire by study or conjectures, I determined, personally, and with my own eyes, to endeavour to ascertain the situations of places, the qualities of peoples, the diversities o f animals, the varieties of the fruit-bearing and odoriferous trees of Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Felix, Persia, India and Ethiopia, remembering well that the testimony of one eye-witness is worth more than ten heard-says. Having then, by Divine assistance, in part ac­ complished my object and examined various provinces and foreign nations, it appeared to me that I had done nothing if I kept hidden within myself the things I had witnessed and experienced, instead of communicating them to other studious men. Wherefore I bethought myself to give a very faithful description of this my voyage, according to my humble abilities, thinking thereby to do an action which would be agreeable to my readers; for that, whereas I procured the pleasure of seeing new manners and customs by very great dangers and insupportable fatigue, they will enjoy the same ad­ vantage and pleasure, without discomfort or danger, by merely reading. Reflecting, then, to whom I might best address this my laborious little work, you, Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lady, occurred to me as being a special observer of noteworthy things, and a lover of every virtue. Nor did my judgment appear to me vain, considering the infused learning transferred by the radiant light of that Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord the Duke of Urbino your Father, being as it were to us a sun of arms and of science.