(26.)
Ambrogio Contarini. 1473.
Ambrogio Contarini, descended from one of the most ancient and distinguished patrician families of the Venetian republic, was, like Giosafat Barbaro already mentioned, sent by his government as ambassador to Persia, to incite Ussumcassan to make war against Mahomet II. With a very unostentatious retinue, consisting of only four persons, he set out on the 23rd of February 1473, and proceeded by land, on account of the war, through Germany, Poland, and the Crimea, to Ispahan, where the Persian monarch then resided, and where he met with his countryman Barbaro. He returned through Georgia, Mingrelia, Derbent, Astrachan, Resen, and Moscow, at which last place he arrived on the 26th of September 1476, through the assistance and in the company of a Russian ambassador named Marco Rosso, who was likewise returning from Persia, and thence made his way back through Poland and Germany, arriving at Venice on the 21st of January.
Contarini’s work contains a circumstantial journal of all that he saw from the 24th of February 1474, to the 10th of April 1477, but still more of the misfortunes that happened to himself and his attendants; owing, however, to the disturbed state of the times and unfavourable circumstances, it is not nearly so copious as that of Barbaro.
The eighth chapter of his work contains many interesting statements with regard to Russia. On the
