Gosafat Barbaro

Barbaro, Gosafat 

Born 1413; died 1494. Venetian merchant and diplomat.

In 1436, Barbaro set out on a voyage to Tanais (Azov). He spent 16 years there, making trips along the northern coast of the Black Sea and through the Caucasus. From 1463 to 1473 he was a representative of the Venetian Republic, first in Dalmatia, then in Albania. From 1473 to 1479 he was the ambassador of Uzun Hasan in Tabriz; he strove for the conclusion of an alliance against Turkey. He was in Moscow in 1479 and wrote a brief description of it. The part of his Notes concerning his travels in Russia was published in Russian translation in the collection Library of Foreign Writers About Russia, vol. 1. The section of his Notes about his journey to Tanais and Iran contains much interesting information about the history, ethnography, geography, and archaeology of the local population.