ABSTRACT
Florentine merchants had a very active role in the early expeditions of the Portuguese to India, as investors and often through their direct participation in trade or in war overseas. One of the Florentines known to have participated in one of the early expeditions of the Portuguese to India, Vasco da Gama’s second journey, was Giovanni Buonagrazia. Buonagrazia’s letter needs to be read in the light of the travel literature of the period, a genre which in reality contained many subgenres. Giovanni Buonagrazia occupied the important position of captain and was employed by a Portuguese courtier, Rui Mendes de Brito, in a small group of ships sent by a number of private investors, many of them Italians, to accompany the major fleet commanded by Vasco da Gama in 1502. The contents of the letter can be roughly divided under three headings: economic information, ethnological information and an account of personal adventures and political affairs.
