Knowing and Mapping Iran, spies and maps of yesterday and today: Pietro della Valle and the european travellers in Seventeenth Century Persia in the light of the present day
Keywords:
Iran, Diplomacy, Cartography, Intelligence, Seventeenth Century, Early Modern History, Pietro della ValleCopyright (c) 2020 Raffaele Mauriello
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
Abstract
One of the characteristics of the early Modern era is the development of cartography. Between 1450 and 1650 maps moved from portraying the world in Medieval terms – that is, as orbis terrae – to a division of the terrestrial globe in segments in the form of grids and coordinates.
This change was due in particular to the numerous travels of exploration or adventure and diplomacy undertaken in those years by Europeans. In the case of Italy and Iran, “our man” is Pietro della Valle (1586-1652). He was there, and with him the gaze and interests of Italy, represented at that time by the Vatican and by the Republic of Venice. But he was not alone.
Together with della Valle there were also the British Sir Robert Sherley, the German Heinrich von Poser und Groß Naedlitz and the Spanish Don García de Silva y Figueroa. They, and others who followed them, tried to get information about and to influence the affairs of Iran and of the wider geopolitics of the Near East, at the same time making a contribution to the cartography of the country through their travel accounts and other writings.
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