Nicolò de\' Conti

The constrained apostate tells his adventure

On the way of the return, it is obliged to convert with the Islam to save its life, that of his wife, a woman whom it met and with which he married during his tour, and of his/her children. He asks audience to the pope Eugene IV to obtain his forgiveness for his Apostasie forced. The Holy Father, Venetian like gives him, him like Pénitence to tell his tour with Poggio Bracciolini, known as Pogge , his private secretary. Its account, now forgotten, knows at the time a great success and makes it possible to refine the geographical representations of the Ground and to conform part of information concerning the Indian Ocean revealed by Marco Polo. Very regularly, the indications of distance between stages are given in day of walk or navigation to help the merchants, which appears useful for the geographers.

Its account comprises three principal parts: a description of its route, a description of the Indies more particularly and a complement concerning the King Jean who owes all in Bracciolini. At the end of its voyage, with the Monastery Holy-Catherine of the Sinai, Nicolò meets Pero Tafur, a Spanish traveller who accompanies it until the Cairo.

On the way for the East

Its long voyage 25 years thus starts with Damas from where it takes the caravan of the Euphrate and of the southernmost Mésopotamie to arrive at Baldochia (Baghdad). The empire of Tamerlan is then in full deliquescence. There, it takes a boat and descends the Tigre until Balsera (Bassora) and reached the Persian Gulf. It embarks on a ship, sails on the gulf until Colchus (Kangân), then Ormesia (Ormuz), accosts on the Persian shore of the Indian Ocean and moves towards Calacatia (Kalat) to the Balouchistan where it remains some time and ties commercial relations with Persan traders. It is in this city that he learns the Persan one and decides to adopt the local costume for the continuation of his voyage.

After having begun again a ship, it reaches Combahita (Cambay) from where it begins its observations of the Indian life, practice of the Satî, for example, that it discovers there. The Goujerat, which was released from the supervision of the sultans of Delhi, is then a rising economic power and Cambay the largest market of the area where all the productions of the back-country are found: Cotton gross, hard stones, Indigo, Opium but especially woven materials and dyes whose Goujerat is a producer appreciated since at least the time of the old Egypt.

Nicolò skirts the west coast of India, making stopover with Pachamuria (Barkur) and Helli (Eli) where it observes the plant of the Gingembre of which it makes a description. From there, it moves towards the interior of the grounds to rejoin Bizenegalia (Vijayanagar) of which it reports the richness. De Vijayanagar, it joined the port of Pudifetania (Pudupattana) while passing by the two towns of Odeschiria and Cenderghiria ( Chandragiri , mount of the moon), of the too current toponyms in India to allow an unquestionable identification, but where it announces the presence of wood of Santal. It passes then to Cahila (Kayal) which it announces like place of production of pearls and makes the description of the Talipot - of will tâla-pattra, Corypha will umbraculifera - a palm tree with large sheets prepared by the Tamoul S to be used like paper or to protect themselves from the rain and the sun. He says to sail then until Malpuria (Mailapur, today a suburb in the south of Chennai), but he is possible that he did not really go there, not besides than Marco Polo, the description of the place of the burial of the apostle obligatory Thomas pretense perhaps from the point of view of his penitence. He announces the presence on the spot great community of Christian nestoriens that he affirms being in the same situation of diaspora as the Juif S in Europe.

The next described stage is Ceylon of which he points out the high content in gems and where he makes the precise description of the local cinnamon-tree, but he is extremely probable which he rather made stopover on the island at the time of his return voyage. He announces a lake on the island, already described like the Megisba of Pline Old the, but this one is impossible to identify because of great quantity of tanks and artificial lakes in the island. At most, can one think that he speaks about Anurâdhapura or Polonnâruvâ, since he speaks about a royal city being in the middle of the lake, which is not completely the case in reality.

Its route continues then towards the east where, after twenty days of navigation during which it passes to north islands Andaman ( Andamania ) that it announces, after Marco Polo, as populated cannibals. Nicolò gives to Sumatra the name of Taprobane (of the Pâli, Tambapanna ) which is the ancient name of Ceylon, but at its time this name is not employed any more locally, for the benefit of Simhala (name faded Sihalia , reference mark of the lions, animal present on the flag of the Sri Lanka) (which will give Ceylon) or of the Arab form Sarandîb , which explains its error. There, it makes the description of the Poivrier and the Durian under the name of durianum . It makes also the first description of the Batak, under the name of Batech , an ethnos group of the North-West of the island, which remained anthropophagous until the 19th century and which are announced such by Conti.

In the Indian Ocean

It turns over then towards north to Thenasseri (Tenasserim) in current the Burma then rejoins Bengal where it goes up the Gange. It navic on the river during several months with against current, passing by unknown big cities today like Cernove , Maharatia and Buffetania which probably disappeared since, because of the modifications of the delta of the river. It estimates the width of an arm of the river at 15 miles, that is to say between 20 and 25 km, described giant bamboos which one makes boats, announce the Gavial of Gange and described a fruit named Musa , produced by the Musa sapientium or the Musa paradisiaca and which we name Banane. He as speaks about nut of India as the Portuguese will name Coconut in 1498.

Having left the delta of Gange, it turns over towards the Burma, visit Arakan, reached the river Dava, our Irrawaddy and goes up it until Ava. Of this area, the weather is during the relation of a strange practice of insertion of grelots under the skin of the rod, attested besides by other travellers thereafter, capture of the wild elephants intended to be tamed, a description in conformity with that of Pline (according to Pogge), and described a species of mango as well as the Indian Rhinocéros which it names Licorne . It goes then to Pancovia (Pègou) which it describes like a large city; it affirms to spend there four months and it claims to see there for the first time since its arrival in the Indian world of the Raisin which one makes Vin.

Towards the extreme East

Its following destination is interior India, the archipelago of Malaysia, where he visits Java, where he speaks about the cockfights, and Borneo - the Eastern point of its tour, he thinks that one cannot sail any more in the east - whose inhabitants are described like appalling and cruel men. It describes the bird of paradise however, Paradisea apoda , which is marketed there there, but comes from the islands of Aru in New Guinea. It makes state then islands of Sandai , probably the Moluques, where the Muscade and its mace and of Bandam is produced (Banda) where the Girofle pushes, making the error reverse the sources.

It takes again then the direction of the occident and fact stopover in the Royaume of Champâ before joining Coloen (Kollam) on the Malabar Coast, after one month of navigation, area of which it praises, with reason, the richness of the production of spices. There, it makes description of a flying squirrel, the Jacquier ( Artocarpus integrafolia ) and under the name of amba , of mango (of the Sanskrit, amram , the Mangifera indica ). From there, it goes to Cocym (Cochin) and gives an account of a local fishing to the lamp . It continues to go up the coast by stopping with Colonguria (Cranganore), then declining for the benefit of Cochin since the rising of the Periyar river in 1341, then with Paluria and Meliancota , two cities which were not indentifiées with certainty and finally with Collicuthia (Calicut) of which it gives an account of qualities like counter, with its abundance of goods. It describes also the habits matriarcales of the Hefty fellow, the system known as marumakkatayam which is also observed later by the Portuguese.

Conti is soon of return to Cambay where it describes the bachali , certainly Jaïn S, many forts in Goujerat. It sails then to the island of Secuthéra (Socotra), made stopover with Adena (Aden) of which it praises the buildings, Barbora (Berbera) in Ethiopia, Gidda (Djeddah) before passing by the the Sinai from where it joined by the ground Cairo. There remains some time there, but an epidemic of plague strikes the city and he loses his wife and two of his four children. Lastly, after 25 years it joined Venice.

The description of the Indies

The account of Nicolò finishes with the answers of Conti to the questions of Poggio about the Indian life, the social classes, the religion, the vestimentary modes, the habits, practices and characteristics of various kinds. According to the extremely widespread use then, the Venetian one divides the Indies into three great parts, the first - white India - extending from the Perse to the Indus, the second of Indus in Gange, the third including/understanding all that is beyond Gange, makes of it Bengal and Burma, area considered as concealing great richnesses, of a culture and a magnificence equalizing those of the Italy. In the latter part of its account, it reports that Indians use not compass, that the holds of their vessels are made up of tight zones, which makes them very sure, a characteristic of the jonque faintness very much used in the Indian Ocean. It describes in Vijayanagar a festival rather similar to that of the Râthayâtra of Purî where tanks are drawn and under the wheels of which excessively pious people throw themselves in order to die crushed while offering themselves in sacrifice. It also gives an account of the festival of the Holî or celebrates colors, of a tree which it names verecundia , which seems to react to the environmental stress and which could be a variety of Mimosa. Nicolò seems to have wanted to go in the Golkonda since Vijayanagar but to have given up there in front of the description of the snakes which would infest the area. The year 1432 is correctly indicated like the year 1490 of the era Vikrama.

Nicolò brings back several very old legends and that nobody questions. It does not refer any to the any power of the Islam in a great number of areas which it crosses, a power against which fight the pope and who makes him seek allies, mythical, like the Jean priest. It does not refer any either to its expansion in Indonesia where it involves soon the fall of the Empire Majapahit and the obliteration of the Hindou isation of the archipelago, nor with the seizure that the Moslems have on the trade of the spices to the Kérala, seizure to which are confronted the Portuguese on their arrival in India, at the end of the century. It does not give an account of the Chinese fleets either armed with the Ming, ordered by eunuque the Zheng He, which cross at the same time in these seas and including jonques the one hundred forty meters long, almost five times longer than the caravels of about thirty meters which arrive little from times after its passage and which would certainly have appeared to him marvellous. It quotes on the other hand all the establishments of Christians whom it meets on his road.

In spite of the toponymies often deformed by the filter of the classicism plinien of Poggio and which makes them often not easily recognizable, the account of Nicolò de Conti is the best report on the Asia of the south which was ever made by an European of the 15th century.

See too

Random links: