Indian Antiquary Vol 53

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 57

MAROH, 1924 ]
CESARE DI FEDERICI AND GASPARO BALBI
61
The work of Balbi appeared in Venice in the year 1590, printed by Camillo Borgominieri, with the following title: Viaggio dell' Indie Orientali, di Gasparo Balbi Gioielliero Venetiano. Nel quale si contiene quanto egli in detto viaggio ha veduto per lo spatio di 9. Anni consumati in esso dal 1579, fino al 1588. Con la relatione dei datij, pesi, e misure di tutte le citld di tal viaggio, e del governo del Re di Pegi, e delle guerre fatte da lui con altri Re d'Anud e di Sion. Con la Tavola delle cose pisl notabili (one volume in small 8°). According to the Biogr. univ., III, 262, and Boccardo, III, 117, a second edition was issued in 1600, of which I have not been able to get any other information. 13
The works of Federici and Balbi have never, as far as may knowledge goes, been translated into any modern language except English. Both of them are found in Hakluyt, The Principall Navigations, Voyages, Traffics and Discoveries, and further, the whole of Federici and that part of Balbi dealing with Pegu, in Purchas His Pilgrims, II. X, 1702 ff., 1722 ff., (ed. of 1905_07, X, 88 ff., 143 ff.). There is also & Latin translation of Balbi in De Bry, India Orientalis, Pars VII (1600), pp. 43-1 2613, where, socording to the method adopted in that famous work, some illustrations are added, of which there are none in the original.14 The statement of Boccardo 15: Oleario nella sua edizione dei viaggi di Mandelslo da un compendio del viaggio del Balbi, I do not quite understand, as it does not seem to be borne out by facts.16
The voyage of Cesare di Federici is valuable from more than one point of view-above all for a very clear description of the trade-routes and products of the East. But it has also some value as a historical source, there being found in some passages notices of contemporaneous events in India and Pegu that do not appear elsewhere, or are here put forward in a special way.1! But as a historical source the work has, as far as I can see, scarcely ever been used, 18 but this point cannot be further entered upon here, as being wholly outside the scope of this small paper.
Simple and clear as his style generally is, there is, however, one difficulty that cannot easily be mastered: although the author has, by the order of the places visited by him, approximately indicated his route, he has hardly ever told us the exact time of his visit to this place or that. Consequently it is difficult, and partly impossible, to form a clear opinion of what periods of his long travelling time (1563-81) he spent at the different places he found occacion to visit. In the following lines only a feeble attempt can be made to throw at least some light on the obscurities of his book.
13 In Ersch-Gruber, the yoar of this 2nd edition is given as 1609, which may, after all, be a misprint.
13 O. Camus, Mémoires sur les collections des voyages des De Brya Thevenol, Paris 1802, p. 23 ; Zurla I. c. 1, 258.
14 As the work of De Bry seems to be extremely rare, I give here an index of these ten illustrations ; (1) Hook-swinging ; (2) A palanquine ; (3) An audience with the king of Pogu ; (4) Traitors burnt to death in Pogu ; (6) A battle between the kings of Pegu and Ava ; (6) Elophants in the corral; (7) Procession of slophants in Pegu; (8) Festivals in Pegu; (0) Sapan Daiche and Sapan Donon (festivals); (10) Funeral of the king of Pegu and of Talapoins.
16 I. o. III, 117.
16 On Mandelalo of the remarks of Vincent A. Smith, JRAS., 1918, p. 246 ff, and Akbar the Great Nogul, Oxford, 1917, p. 475.
17 Some small remarks of this sort I have given in a review of Vincent Smith's excellent book on Akbar that appeared in the Göttingische Gelehrte Anaeigen of 1919.
10 In Sinclair and Ferguson, The Travels of Pedro Terreira, London, (Hakluyt Soc.), 1902, p. 194. I find a quotation from Federic (and Balbi) concerning the King of Ormus.