Till Don Garcia made the elaborate notes from which the writer of the foregoing account derived his information, ‘nothing assured’ was known in Europe concerning these remarkable remains. Sebastian Serlio, we are told in his work on Architecture, only knew of them from ‘an uncertain and barbarous relation,’ and he has given us merely a rough drawing of the edifice, showing forty small columns with Corinthian capitals.[19] Don Garcia even complains that Gouvea could only give him a ‘confused’ account. Don Garcia brought an artist with him, and he took the best means of dissipating the obscurity in which the subject was hitherto involved by having drawings made upon the spot. The artist said he intended to copy the triumphal procession on the stairs, but he probably found the time at his disposal insufficient for this labour, for he afterwards says he actually accomplished the drawing of four of the figures, upon one of which were ‘the characters composed of little triangles in the form of a pyramid.’ But of greater importance than these was the copy Don Garcia ordered to be taken of ‘a whole line of the large inscription which is on the staircase in the centre of the triumphal procession. It is to be found on a highly polished table, four feet in height, in which the letters are deeply cut.’ We are unable to say whether these drawings appeared in the original Spanish edition, but they have not been reproduced in the French translation.
Don Garcia finally reached Ispahan in 1618, where he was detained till August in the following year. His mission turned out a complete failure. One of its principal objects was to secure a monopoly of the Persian trade for Spain. Just as he reached Goa he heard that the Governor of Lara had taken Gombrun from the Portuguese. While he was in Persia, he had the mortification to find that port regularly used every year by the English to land their goods. In 1618, peace was concluded between Persia and Turkey, and the Shah was thus rendered independent of the Spanish alliance, while he was daily becoming more disposed to rely upon the English merchant fleet in the event of an open rupture with the Portuguese of Ormuz. He had always consistently opposed the concession of a monopoly to any one nation, and he now found himself sufficiently powerful to reject the demands of Spain. The discomfited Ambassador left in August 1619, and spent the winter at Ormuz in the hope of a favourable change in the aspect of affairs: and he finally reached Spain in 1622, after an adventurous voyage.
During his residence in the Persian capital, he made the acquaintance of Pietro della Valle, a Roman gentleman of considerable fortune, who had been travelling for some years in the East. In consequence of a disappointment in love he had sought relief in foreign adventure, and at the age of twenty-nine he embarked at Venice for Constantinople. After visiting Egypt and the Holy Land, he crossed the desert to Bagdad. At that time Bagdad was commonly supposed to be built on the site of the ancient city of Babylon. But Della Valle had no difficulty in pointing out that this was evidently an error, for we know that the one city was built on the Tigris, while the other stood on the Euphrates. He made several excursions through Mesopotamia, and visited the mounds near Hillah, which he had no doubt covered the ruins of the true Babylon. He has left an account of the state in which he found them, which may still be read with interest; and he picked up some of the bricks, both baked and unbaked, of which they are composed.[20] These he subsequently brought back with him to Rome, where they were included in his private collection of antiquities. They were perhaps the first specimens that ever reached Europe, and a few of them may still be seen in the Museo Kircheriano. He indulged his antiquarian tastes by endeavouring to ascertain the sites of some of the famous cities of antiquity, and he seems to have been the first to identify that of Ctesiphon correctly. At Bagdad he married a Mesopotamian lady, and afterwards crossed the mountains of Kurdistan into Persia. He was cordially welcomed to the Court by Shah Abbas, who enrolled him among the privileged number of ‘Guests of the King.’
In the autumn of 1621, after a sojourn of nearly five years, Della Valle thought it expedient for many reasons to turn his steps homewards. He had fallen into very bad health, and it was clear that he had ceased to be cordially received at Court, although he professes to have left without having forfeited its favour.[21] Accordingly on October 1, he quitted Ispahan without any formal leave-taking, and followed the usual road to the coast. After several days’ journey he came to the Puli Neu, or New Bridge over the ‘Kur,’ no doubt the ‘Cyrus’ of the ancients, and probably also identical with the Araxes, a word that simply means ‘river.’ He followed its course till he came to a small rivulet called the Polvar, which at first he thought must correspond to the Medus of Strabo, an opinion he subsequently rejected on the ground that the stream was not of sufficient importance. Having crossed it by a bridge, he at length reached Chehel Minar, and pitched his tents close to the ruins.[22] The ‘Geographical Epitome’ of Ferrari, which Della Valle carried with him, represented Shiraz as the probable position of Persepolis, an opinion which Gouvea had not controverted. We have seen, however, that Don Garcia had no difficulty in identifying Chehel Minar with the ruins of the ancient Persian Palace. Della Valle had no doubt often discussed the matter with him during the winter of 1618, which they spent together at Ispahan, and he accepts the identification of the site of Persepolis without hesitation. He was, however, by no means convinced that the ruins upon the Terrace are the remains of the Palace. Without decisively rejecting that supposition, he was more inclined to believe that they were originally designed for a great temple. The scene on the sculptured staircase he regarded as a sacrificial procession; and the imposing figure beneath the umbrella might represent a high priest no less than a king. He could not discover any indications that the principal buildings had ever been roofed, which he considered a strong confirmation of the temple theory. He observed that the ‘horses’ on the Porch were human-headed with wings like griffins, and that their backs were apparently protected by iron harness. He thought the monsters on the other two piers were the same, only facing in the opposite direction. Between them he saw there had originally been four columns, two of which were still standing, and the others fallen to the ground. Turning to the right towards the south, he observed a large vase of marble, about twenty-four feet square, that had evidently been intended for ablutions; and passing farther on in the same direction he came to the sculptured staircase, which he now places for the first time in its correct position beneath the Columnar Edifice. We also learn that the figures on both sides are turned towards the central stairs, and present the appearance of a procession about to ascend the steps. He gives a detailed account of the bas-reliefs, and observes that the different groups are separated from each other by a design representing the cypress tree. The various animals that figure in the procession lead him to think they were intended for sacrifice, and hence that the edifice had been probably a temple. He fixes the position of the inscriptions at the extreme end of the procession. He is much less enthusiastic in his praise than Don Garcia. He does not consider that the figures of men and animals, nor those of trees, are well designed; and he thinks the beauty of the work as a whole consists chiefly in its antiquity and in the magnificence of the marble of which it is composed. Don Garcia had counted twenty-seven columns, but at the time of Della Valle’s visit, only three and a half years later, not more than twenty-five remained. As he approached from the north he observed the traces of two rows of columns stretching from east to west. Beyond them is a vacant space, about sufficient for two rows of columns; and then we come to a central group of six rows of columns arranged from north to south. On either side, to west and east of the central group, but separated from it by the distance already mentioned, there are double rows of columns, as on the north side. He says nothing of any colonnade on the south, where in fact there is none. The columns are about twenty-six and a half feet apart, and some are higher than others, from which he inferred that the building was not roofed, and could not therefore have been the palace of a king. He could not find any trace of a staircase leading to an upper story.
Passing the columns and continuing in the same southerly direction, he observed two small chambers, one on the right hand, near the edge of the Terrace; the other on the left hand, towards the mountain. They are not really chambers, but open courts; nor are they surrounded by walls, but by the jambs of doors and windows. As in the Columnar Edifice, there are no indications that the buildings were roofed, and on that account he believes they were parts of a temple where sacrifices were offered in the open air; he does not consider they were designed for a sepulchre. In addition to the ‘venerable personage’ already noted by Don Garcia, he remarked that men are depicted on the side doors struggling or fighting with lions. Behind this chamber, in a small open court, he saw two high pilasters with inscriptions at the top, but at such an elevation that he could not distinguish the characters. From this point we fail to follow him with equal certainty. He detected a group of columns forming a square of six in a ruin that evidently corresponds to the Palace of Xerxes; and he observed the remains of an aqueduct below. He alludes to another enclosure which may possibly be the Hall of the Hundred Columns, although he thought it could have been no part of the original design of the fabric.
He remarked the great inscription near the lion on the wall of the sculptured terrace below the Columnar Edifice. ‘It occupies,’ he says, ‘the entire height of the wall from top to bottom. One cannot tell in what language or letters these inscriptions are written, because the characters are unknown. They are very large and are not united to one another, but divided and distinct, each by itself alone as in Hebrew: if indeed what I take for a letter only is not a complete word. I have copied five of them as best I could, and they are those that occur most frequently.’[23] The lines of the inscription are filled up ‘so that I cannot tell whether they are to be read from right to left as in Oriental languages, or from left to right as with us.’ He is, however, disposed to believe they are read from left to right, because when the ‘pyramidical figure’ is vertical the head is always uppermost, and when the figure slopes or is placed horizontally the head is to the left and the point inclined to the right. He remarked that the writing was composed entirely of the one pyramidical figure and of an angular character more slender than the other; and it was simply the number and disposition of these two forms that constituted the difference of the letter.
Don Garcia had no doubt that the ruins had been entirely devoted to the secular uses of a palace and citadel. We have seen that Della Valle, though he accepted their identification with Persepolis, could not readily believe that the large roofless buildings had ever been suited for a dwelling, and he therefore inclined to the theory that they were the remains of a temple.
From his tent at Chehel Minar he rode a league to the north to the base of the hills that surround the plain, in order to visit a monument called Naksh-i-Rustam—of which he is the first to give an account. He explains that Rustam is a celebrated Persian hero who lived about the time of Cyrus. Della Valle came to a large square space levelled in the side of the rock, on which various figures larger than life were cut in half relief. The subject represented two men on horseback, the one endeavouring to wrest from the other a ring which he held in his hand. A third person appears on horseback, holding the hand of a man by his side. Elsewhere he observed figures of women, and other subjects to which he could not assign a meaning. Near these sculptures he noticed remains that could only have been intended for sepulchres. Among these were two square pedestals with an aperture above to contain the ashes of the body. Elsewhere he observed on the side of the mountain several openings like windows, possibly intended to admit a corpse. But the most remarkable discovery was a sculpture that could only be reached by ladders. It represented the front of a house; a door in the centre and several columns on each side, supporting an architrave—frieze and cornice. The front was ornamented with various figures which he could not accurately define on account of the height of the monument. But he thought he discerned a man leaning upon a bow and contemplating an altar. Above him, as if suspended in the air, was a figure which appeared to his companions to resemble the Devil. He thought this was probably Jamshid, who had reigned many years before Cyrus, and who is still remembered as a great enchanter, and possibly to be identified with Nebuchadnezzar. He had seen two somewhat similar sepulchres just over Chehel Minar (those noticed by Don Garcia), and one of these he had been able to enter. He found they were excavated from the rock, quadrilateral in shape, and about the height of a man; with three large hollow niches at the sides, which he somewhat fancifully imagined had been used as reservoirs for water. A long stone he observed on the floor appeared to cover the place of sepulture. He thought the city of Persepolis might have covered the whole plain between Chehel Minar and Naksh-i-Rustam.
Della Valle only passed two days among these ruins, and then continued his journey to Shiraz. His intention was to go to Ormuz and take a passage to Goa, from whence he could find his way back to Europe. As he approached the coast, however, he found his journey impeded from a very unexpected cause. The departure of Don Garcia from Ispahan, in the summer of 1619, had been followed by the interruption of the good relations between the Portuguese and the Persians. While the Ambassador was still detained at Ormuz (1619-20) he had the mortification to witness the English merchant fleet arrive and calmly proceed to take the soundings of the harbour of Gombrun, which, since its annexation to Persia, had acquired the new name of Bunder Abbas, or Port of Abbas. In the spring (1620), hostilities broke out between Persia and the Arabs of the opposite coast, who were friendly to the Portuguese. With a view to reprisals the latter threw the Persian merchants at Ormuz into prison. As the year advanced, the Portuguese fleet arrived with positive orders to recover Gombrun and the island of Bahrein, and also to build a fort at Kesem to secure the water supply. The friction that existed between the Portuguese and Spanish authorities delayed the immediate execution of these instructions, and meanwhile the annual English fleet had time to arrive. An engagement at once followed, and the Portuguese were forced to withdraw (January 1621). When the English vessels left the Gulf with their cargo the Portuguese returned, and speedily began hostilities by landing a force on the island of Kesem and beginning the erection of a fort (June 1621). In the autumn they destroyed the Port of the Two Headlands on the mainland, and the Persian army immediately occupied the whole coast line and cut off communications with Ormuz (October). This event occurred just at the time Della Valle was on his journey to Bunder Abbas. He approached sufficiently near to hear the roar of cannon from Ormuz, and after making some useless attempts to cross to the island, he retired to Mina, where, under the protection of the English merchants, he waited the course of events (October 1621). The town was very unhealthy. His wife died, and he himself was reduced to the point of death. As soon as the English fleet arrived the Persians with their assistance commenced hostilities in earnest. Kesem was occupied and the new fort destroyed. Ormuz itself was attacked, and fell after an heroic resistance (April 1622). The Portuguese held the port of Jask on the mainland till the following year (1623), when it was taken by the English to avenge the death of their commander Shilling, and handed over to the Persians. Thus the Portuguese were finally driven from the Persian Gulf, and their trade was transferred to the English and Dutch.[24] Della Valle returned to Shiraz to recruit his health, and it was not till January 1623 that he found a passage in an English vessel to Surat. He reached Rome in 1626, bringing with him the body of his wife, and a large collection of curiosities. He gave an account of his adventures in a series of letters to a friend at Naples: the one which contains his description of Persepolis is dated from Shiraz, October 21, 1621. On his return to Rome he made a collection of his scattered correspondence, but the first part did not appear till 1650, only two years before his death; the portion (Part III.) that contains the letter on Persepolis was first published in 1658. It included the five cuneiform letters he had copied on the spot, and although their publication was delayed for nearly forty years they still seem to have been the first to appear in Europe; for we are not aware that the drawings of Don Garcia ever saw the light.
Meanwhile Persepolis was visited by an English traveller, whose description long anticipated that of Della Valle. It will be recollected that Gouvea met a young Englishman, Robert Shirley, at Ispahan in 1602, and won him over to the Catholic faith. Shirley was subsequently employed by Shah Abbas as Envoy to the European Courts, and he resided for many years in Spain. The fall of Ormuz put an end to his mission in that country, and in 1623 we find him in England. He was a somewhat absurd person who adhered to Oriental costume, and went about in a red turban surmounted by a cross. A singular occurrence cast suspicion on the validity of his credentials as a Persian envoy. A native Persian arrived on the scene, who treated Shirley’s pretensions with contempt, and gave himself out as the only true representative of the Shah. The documents that could alone settle the dispute were all written in Persian, and no independent person could then be found in the whole of England who was able to read a word of that language. The controversy grew warm, and the native Persian enforced his position by knocking his rival down. At length it was determined to send an English ambassador to Ispahan to clear up the matter, and Sir Dormer Cotton was selected. He was accompanied by Sir Thomas Herbert, who has left an account of his adventures. They sailed from Tilbury on Good Friday 1626 and reached Bunder Abbas in January 1627. He found the English in enjoyment of high favour in consequence of the assistance they had lately rendered in driving the Portuguese from the Gulf. They were ‘privileged to wear their flags displayed at the top of their publick houses’ or consulates, and there were many merchants, both English and Dutch, living in the town. Nor does it appear to have been a wholly undesirable residence. Herbert speaks in praise of the ‘Buzaar,’ the numerous coffee-houses, sherbet-shops, and other places of entertainment. Its prosperity had increased immensely since the fall of Ormuz, ‘which of late was the glory of the East, but had now become the most disconsolate.’