Travels in Persia, 1617–1622

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About the book

Author:

Pietro della Valle

Translators:

Translated & Annotated by Willem Floor

Publish Date:

January 20, 2026

Languages:

English

Pages:

1148

ISBN No:

978-1-949445-95-4

A landmark of seventeenth-century travel writing—now available for the first time in a complete, fully annotated English translation. When the Roman nobleman Pietro della Valle set out for the East in 1614, he imagined a pilgrimage. What he produced instead was one of the most vivid and detailed portraits of Safavid Iran ever written. His letters from Isfahan, Shiraz, Farahabad, Qazvin, and Basra—part reportage, part ethnography, part personal confession—capture a world in the midst of transformation under Shah Abbas the Great.

In these pages, della Valle records court ceremonials and bazaars, gardens and palaces, mineral lore and medical practices, and the daily life of Persians, Armenians, Turks, Kurds, and Indians. He writes with equal intimacy about politics and architecture, marriage customs and music, caravan life and commerce. His account of Isfahan—its Maydan, palaces, caravanserais, and tree-lined avenues—remains one of the greatest city descriptions of the early modern world.

Despite the enormous popularity of Viaggi in the seventeenth century, no complete English translation has ever existed. Drawing on the authoritative two-volume 1843 Brighton edition, Willem Floor has translated and annotated every letter concerning Iran, including della Valle’s Baghdad letters and materials from Muscat and Basra when relevant. The result is a monumental work: over 1,100 pages of translated text—57 percent of the original Viaggi—presented with meticulous notes, modernized place and personal names, and a detailed index and bibliography.

Elegant, intimate, and encyclopedic, Travels in Persia, 1617 to 1622 of Pietro della Valle opens an unparalleled window onto Safavid Iran and stands as an indispensable source for historians, scholars, and general readers fascinated by the early modern Middle East.

Foreword, vii

Part I, Baghdad

Letter XVII, Baghdad,

10 and 23, December 1616, 1

Letter XVIII, Baghdad, 2 January 1617, 68

Part II, PERSIA, Section I (1617-1619)

First Letter, Isfahan, 17 March 1617, 77

Letter II, Isfahan, 19 March 1617, 137

Letter III, Isfahan, 18 December 1617, 145

Letter IV, Farahabad in the early days of May,

and from Qazvin on 25 July 1618, 212

Letter V, Isfahan, 22 April and 8 May, 1619, 383

Part II, Persia, Section II (1619-1623)

Letter VI, Isfahan, 24 August 1619, 551

Letter VII, Isfahan, 21 October 1619, 607

Letter VIII, Isfahan, 4 April 1620, 617

Letter IX, Isfahan, 20 June 1620, 665

Letter X, Isfahan, 3 August 1620, 677

Letter XI, Isfahan, 8 August 1620, 681

Letter XII, Isfahan, 23 February 1621, 697

Letter, Isfahan, 25 February 1621, 750

Letter, XIV, Isfahan, 24 September 1621, 757

Letter XV, Shiraz, 21 October 1621, 786

Letter XVI, Shiraz, 27 July 1622, 829

Letter XVII, Combru, 29 November, 1622, 949

Letter XVIII, from the ship Balena,

18 January, 1623, 1017

Part III

Letter IX, Masqat, 19 January 1625, 1041

Letter X, Basra, 20 May, 1625, 1046

Chronology of Pietro della Valle’s

Itinerary in Persia, 1083

Bibliography, 1087

Index, 1104

About the author

Pietro della Valle (1586–1652) was an Italian nobleman, traveler, and writer whose letters from the East rank among the most important travel accounts of the early modern period. Born in Rome into a distinguished aristocratic family, he was classically educated and active in the city’s literary and musical circles before embarking on a journey that would take him across the Ottoman Empire, Safavid Iran, and as far as India.

Beginning in 1614, della Valle traveled through Constantinople, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia, and India, recording with exceptional attentiveness the political life, religious practices, architecture, commerce, and everyday customs of the societies he encountered. His descriptions of Safavid Iran—especially Isfahan under Shah ʿAbbās the Great—remain among the most vivid and detailed eyewitness accounts of the period.

During his travels he married the Assyrian Christian Sitti Maani Gioerida, whose death in Persia deeply shaped his later writings. After returning to Rome in 1626, he was honored by Pope Urban VIII and devoted the remainder of his life to scholarship and music, contributing both compositions and theoretical writings.

Della Valle’s letters were published posthumously as the Viaggi, a work that combines autobiography, ethnography, and historical reportage. This English edition, Travels in Persia, 1617–1622, presents for the first time a complete translation of all his writings relating to Iran, offering modern readers direct access to one of the most perceptive European observers of Safavid society.