VALLE (Pietro della).
I. Les Fameux Voyages de Pietro Della Valle, Gentil-Homme Romain, surnomme l'Illustre Voyageur, avac un denombrement tres-exact de choses les plus curieuses, & les plus remarquables qu'il a veues dans la Turquie, l'Egypte, la Palestine, la Perse,
According to Gibbon “ no traveller knew and described Persia so well as P. della Valle“ another,( Sir Henry Yule ) goes further describing the author as “ the prince of all who have related their experiences… [one] insatiate in curiosity, the most intelligent in apprehension, the fullest and most accurate in description“. His journey was suggested by the addressee of these fifty-four letters the Neapolitan doctor Schipano. Della Valle set off first on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he continued his travels through Syria and on to Persia where he met and married the Circassian Setti Manni. Having spent some time at the court of Shah Abbas in northern Persia he continued his travels on to India during which journey his wife died, returning from Goa to Muscat and up the Persian Gulf to Bushire, thence overland to the Mediterranean and home.
