Жосафат Барбаро: Венеция саяхатшысы және дипломаты

Venetian merchant and travel writer (1413–1494)
Giosafat Barbaro (also Giosaphat or Josaphat) (1413–1494) was a member of the Venetian Barbaro family. He was a diplomat, merchant, explorer and travel writer. He was unusually well travelled for someone of his times.

Giosafat Barbaro was born to Antonio and Franceschina Barbaro in a palazzo on the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa. He became a member of the Venetian Senate in 1431. In 1434, he married Nona Duodo, daughter of Arsenio Duodo. During this time the Golden Horde was disintegrating due to political rivalries. Barbaro and six other men, a mix of Venetian and Jewish merchants, hired 120 men to excavate the kurgan, which they hoped would contain treasure. Modern scholarship concludes that it was not a burial mound, but a kitchen midden that had accumulated over centuries of use. The remains of Barbaro's excavation was found in the 1920s by Russian archeologist Alexander Alexandrovich Miller. Barbaro went as an emissary to the Tatars to persuade them not to attack Tana. Later, Barbaro was part of a group that drove off a hundred Circassian raiders. Barbaro visited many cities in the Crimea, including Solcati, Soldaia, Cembalo, and Caffa. Giosafat Barbaro did not spend all of the years from 1436 to 1452 in Tartary In 1446, he was elected to the Council of Forty. In 1448, he was appointed Provveditore of the trading colonies Modon and Corone in the Peloponnese and served until his resignation the following year. In 1455, Barbaro freed a pair of Tartar men he had found in Venice, housed them for two months, and sent them home to Tana.

In 1460, Giosafat Barbaro was elected Council to Tana, but he declined the position. In 1463, he was appointed Provveditore of Albania. After Skanderbeg's death, Barbaro returned to Venice again. He was in command of 1200 cavalry, which he used to support Lekë Dukagjini. but he was unable to persuade Persia to attack the Turks. The ruler of Persia, Uzun Hassan, sent his own envoys to Venice in return. Zeno, whose wife was the niece of Uzun Hassan's wife, was able to persuade Hassan to attack the Turks. Hassan was successful at first, but there were no simultaneous attacks by any of the western powers and the war turned against Persia. He also spoke Turkish and a little Persian. Barbaro was provided with an escort of ten men and an annual salary of 1800 ducats. In February 1473, Barbaro and the Persian envoy Haci Muhammad left Venice and traveled to Zadar, where they met with representatives of Naples and the Papal court. King James had also written to the Venetian Senate, stressing the need to support Persia against the Turks and his navy had cooperated with Admiral Mocenigo in recapturing the coastal towns of Gorhigos and Selefke. The Emir of Scandelore fell to the Turks in 1473 in spite of military aid from the Kingdom of Cyprus. James II entered into negotiations with the Turks. James had appointed a seven member council, which contained Venetian Andrea Cornaro, a relative of the Queen, as well as Marin Rizzo and Giovanni Fabrice, agents of the Kingdom of Naples who opposed Venetian influence. Queen Catherine gave birth to a son, James II in August 1473., with Admiral Pietro Mocenigo and other Venetian officials acting as godfathers. Once the Venetian fleet left, there was a revolt by pro Neapolitan forces, which resulted in the deaths of the Queen's uncle and cousin. Barbaro also sent dispatches the Senate of Venice, warning them of events. Later, Barbaro and the Venetian troops withdrew to one of the galleys. By the time Admiral Mocenigo returned to Cyprus, the rebels were quarreling among themselves and the people of Nicosia and Famagusta had risen against them. Giosafat Barbaro was still in Cyprus in December 1473, and the Venetian Senate sent a letter, telling Barbaro to complete his journey, as well as sending another ambassador, Ambrogio Contarini to Persia. Barbaro and the Persian envoy left Cyprus in February 1474 disguised as Muslim pilgrims. The Papal and Neapolitan envoys did not accompany them. Barbaro landed in Caramania, where the King warned them that the Turks held the territory they would need to travel through. After landing in Cilicia, Barbaro's party traveled through Tarsus, Adana, Orfa, Merdin, Hasankeyf, and Tigranocerta

Although Barbaro got on well with Uzun Hassan, he was unable to persuade the ruler to attack the Ottomans again. Barbaro visited the ruins of Persepolis, which he incorrectly thought were of Jewish origin. He also visited Tauris, Soldania, Isph, Cassan (Kascian), Como (Kom), Yezd, Shiraz and Baghdad. The other Venetian ambassador, Ambrosio Contarini, arrived in Persia in August 1474.

Barbaro was the last Venetian ambassador to leave Persia, after Uzun Hassan died in 1478. By this point only one of Barbaro's entourage was left. While Hassan's sons fought each other for the throne, Barbaro hired an Armenian guide and escaped by way of Erzerum, Aleppo, and Beirut. Barbaro reached Venice in 1479, where he defended himself against complaints that he had spent too much time in Cyprus before going to Persia. He was also one of the Councilors of Doge Agostino Barbarigo

In 1487, Barbaro wrote an account of his travels. The scholar and courtier William Thomas translated this work into English for the young King Edward VI under the title ‘’Travels to Tana and Persia’’ and also includes the account of Barbaro’s fellow ambassador to Persia, Ambrogio Contarini. This work was republished in London in 1873 by the Hakluyt Society. and a Russian language edition was published in 1971. In 1583, Barbaro’s account was published by Filippo Giunti in ‘’Volume Delle Navigationi Et Viaggi’’ along with those of Marco Polo and Kirakos Gandzaketsi’s account of the travels of Hethum I, King of Armenia. In 1601, Barbaro’s and Contarini’s accounts were included in Pietro Bizzarri’s ‘’ Rerum Persicarum Historia’’ along with accounts by Bonacursius, Jacob Geuder von Heroldsberg, Giovanni Tommaso Minadoi, and Henricus Porsius; which was published in Frankfurt. in 2005, Barbaro’s account was also published in Turkish as ‘’ Anadolu'ya ve İran'a seyahat’’. Barbaro's account provided more information on Persia and its resources than that of Contarini. Barbaro also discussed his travels in a letter written in 1491 to the Bishop of Padua, Pietro Barozzi.

He is one of the historical characters who appear in Dorothy Dunnett's novel Caprice and Rondo in the House of Niccolò series. In the game Civilization V he is a great merchant for the Venetians.