ABSTRACT
A certain Venetian named Nicoló, who had penetrated to the interior of India, came to pope Eugenius (he being then for the second time at Florence) for the purpose of craving absolution, inasmuch as, when, on his return from India, he had arrived at the confines of Egypt, on the Red Sea, he was compelled to renounce his faith, not so much from the fear of death to himself, as from the danger which threatened his wife and children who accompanied him. I being very desirous of his conversation (for I had heard of many things related by him which were well worth knowing), questioned him diligently, both in the meetings of learned men and at my own house, upon many matters which seemed very deserving to be committed to memory and also to writing. He discoursed learnedly and gravely concerning his journey to such remote nations, of the situation and different manners and customs of the Indians, also of their animals and trees 4and spices, and in what place each thing is produced. His accounts bore all the appearance of being true, and not fabrications. He went farther than any former traveller ever penetrated, so far as our records inform us. For he crossed the Ganges and travelled far beyond the island of Taprobana, a point which there is no evidence that any European had previously reached, with the exception of a commander of the fleet of Alexander the Great, and a Roman citizen 1 in the time of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, both of whom were driven there by tempests.
