Ambrogio Contarini and his journey to the East. The circumstances of establishing Venetian and Polish diplomatic contacts with Persia in the second half of the 15th century

Abstract

The article discusses the little-known (in historiography) history ofdiplomatic relations between Christian Europe and Uzun Hassan (1423–1478), the ruler of Persia. The capital of the country was located in Tabriz, currently in north-western Iran. Uzun Hassan provided military support to Ottoman Turkey’s enemies and sought to establish diplomatic relations with Christian states. The author briefly describes the history of Persia’s diplomatic missions, which were usually aimed at Venice and Rome. In 1472, one of them also visited Krakow, the capital of the Kingdom of Poland. Aside from brief references in contemporary chronicles and diplomatic and diplomatic documents, we know little about details of those first political contacts with Persia. The main part of the article refers to an exceptionally well-documented, in terms of sources, journey of Venetian envoy Ambrogio Contarini to Uzun Hassan’s court in Tabriz. He embarked on the diplomatic mission from Venice in February 1474. As Turks at that time were blocking the crossing from Cyprus to Asia Minor, the Venetian envoy decided to travel by land across Germany, the Kingdom of Poland and Ruthenia. His descriptions of obscure regions at Dnieper, including in Kiev itself, are extremely valuable. He also gave a detailed account of his adventurous journey to Caffa on the shore of the Dead Sea. From there, bypassing the Turkish territory and the mountains of the Caucasus, avoiding many dangers, Contarini made it to Persia.

Keywords

• Persia
• Islam
• Ottoman Turkey
• Venetian Republic
• late crusades