And now we find our traveller, of whom it might, by the alteration of a pronoun be said as of the Egyptian Queen: “Nought could excel his infinite variety,” turned courtier. Don Emanuel, “the Fortunate,” was staying at his palace opposite the city, and Varthema crossed the Tagus to kiss the royal hand. So interesting a traveller with so much to relate was most graciously received and kept at court for some days. When he conceived himself to be sufficiently established there, he seized an opportune moment, presented the patent of Knighthood which the Viceroy had given him, and asked the monarch to confirm it. It was his majesty’s pleasure to order a diploma of knighthood to be drawn up on parchment, and then to sign it with his august hand. This document was impressed with the royal seal, and Varthema having seen it registered, took his leave, returned to Italy, and “came to the city of Rome.”
Julius II. sat on the throne of the Fisherman. That old warrior was the very man to appreciate the resolution, the resourcefulness, and the exploit of Varthema. Papa plusquam Papa, he had been a mighty man of valour from his youth upwards; his will of iron was unbroken, and he retained in full the ardour of earlier years. A man of virtu, he aspired to control and guide the restive Powers of Europe to his own ends; and to make Rome the centre of the Arts, as well as the political Mistress of the Western World. If he was Head-bishop of the Western Church, claiming supreme authority over the Christian world, he was also a Temporal Prince, a patron of letters and enlightenment. At this very time, Michael Angelo was busy, by Papal command, adorning the Sistine Chapel with stupendous fresco and endowing sculpture with all his own redundant energy and life. Raphael was employed in painting delicate poems on the walls of the Papal Stanze. It was intended that Rome should become the world’s magnificent capital—a temple to strike awe and submission into the beholder; its only defect, that perchance it might shelter an empty shrine. There was as yet little hint of the terrific revolt of priest and scholar, lanzknecht and trader, which was preparing beyond the Alps; a revolt which tore away half the Empire of the Papacy. Little did Theodosius dream of the overthrow of the sacred city, “urbs æquæva polo,” as Claudian sings by the barbarians of the North; and as little did Julius deem that it was destined soon to be sacked by the same rude race. It was nothing to Julius that Varthema had posed as a renegade: here was a man after his own heart. Nor were most of the Cardinals indifferent to the discovery of memorable matters. If an alien faith had been successfully professed for a laudable purpose so full of commercial possibilities, a few aves and paternosters, or a slight penance, made amends in that lax age. Julius gave mandate by word of mouth that Varthema’s account of his adventures should be duly licensed, and Raphael, Cardinal of St. George, “Chamberlain of our Most Holy Lord the Pope of the Holy Roman Church,” “being advised thereto by many other Most Reverend Cardinals of the Apostolic See,” gave the necessary licence. “Holding the work worthy, not only of commendation, but of ample reward,” he granted that the author and his heirs should hold copyright for a space of ten years. The Cardinal did this on the ground, as he explicitly states that Varthema had, in his seven years of travel, corrected many of the errors of ancient geographers, and that the “public use and study” of his volume would be of service. Such a decision had been impossible after the Reformation, the Counter-Reformation, and the Council of Trent. It were hard, even in our days of more single purpose, severely to censure the sanction to publish the work of a Christian who had posed as a Mohammedan only to “promote,” as the cardinal says, “such studies as have always been held in the highest honour.” Varthema had fully described the products of the East and the localities whence they came; and such information was not only to the advancement of knowledge but to the commercial advantage of his time. Had the Papal Court decided otherwise, the world had lost a priceless record of virile purpose fulfilled and of remote regions hitherto hardly known or wholly unknown. The world is indebted to Julius II. and his Cardinals for their action, whether it be called broad-minded toleration or latitudinarian indifference. Probably the copyright was no unimportant matter to the returned wanderer. As has been remarked, we hear nothing of his having made money by trade in the countries he visited. He was no vulgar gainer of gold, but one who set out to behold the splendour of God on the earth and the amazing manners of that prodigy, man. He dedicated his Itinerario to Agnesina Colonna, a daughter of the illustrious house of Montefeltro, mother of that Vittoria Colonna whom Michael Angelo and her own pen have made famous, and the fourth of five distinguished women in whom learning and ability descended from mother to daughter. It appeared in 1510.[21] The Dedication informs us that I, Varthema, “having gone over some parts of the countries and islands of the east, south and west, am of fixed mind, should it please God, to make enquiry into those of the north. And so, since I do not perceive that I am fitted for any other undertaking, to employ what remains to me of my fleeting days in this honourable task.” Clearly, seven years of peril by land and sea, the greater part of the time being spent in tropical heat, had not satiated the curiosity or abated the audacity of the born-traveller. But no new Itinerario came to tell us of Laps driving their teams of rein-deer, of the splendours of the Northern Lights, or of the marvel of the Midnight Sun.
The Itinerario of 1510 was reprinted more than once in Rome, Venice and Milan during the following fifty years. In 1515 it was translated into German; in 1520, it appeared in Spanish; in 1556, in French; and in 1563, in Dutch. In 1577, Richard Eden gave a truncated and corrupt form of the work, which he had translated from a Latin version into English. It was incorporated with his “History of Travayle in the West and East Indies,” and reprinted for private circulation by the Aungerville Society in 1884. But twenty-one years before this last date, the Hakluyt Society had printed a translation from the original Italian edition by the Rev. Geo. Percy Badger. The modern translation is faithful and eminently readable; Mr. Badger’s annotations are invaluable; and John Winter Jones supplied a preface which is a bibliography. But Richard Eden’s imperfect work necessarily conveys more of the vigorous diction and quaint archaicisms of the original because the English style of Elizabeth’s time more closely resembled that of ordinary Italian prose in the days of Julius II. Yet, readable and delightful as Mr. Badger’s translation is, Varthema remains known only to the specialized student; to the general reader, together with many another ancient worthy of heroic mould, he is unknown, even by name.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Mémoires sur les contrées occidentales, par Hiouen-Thoang, tr. du chinois par S. Julien, 2 t., 1857–8.
Si-yu-ki. Tr. from the Chinese of Hieuen Tsiang by S. Beal. 2 v. (Trübners Oriental Series) 1884.
Hist. de la vie de Hiouen Thsang et de ses voyages dans l’Inde A.D. 629–45, par Hoei-Li et Yen-Thsong. Tr. du Chinois par S. Julien. Imprim. Impér. 1853.
The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang. Tr. by S. Beal. (Trübner’s Oriental Series) 1878.
The spelling of Oriental names of persons and places varies widely in English, as well as in other European languages, according to the system of transliteration employed.