Álvaro da Costa’s journey to Persia and Turkey (1611), the ruins of Babylon, and the riddles of globalization

Saúl Martínez Bermejo

doi:10.3989/chdj.2023.011

Authors

Saúl Martínez Bermejo Universidad Autónoma de Madrid https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5740-3893

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/chdj.2023.011

Keywords:

Travel literature, Microhistory, First globalization, Mesopotamia, Babel, Discoveries, Ruins

Abstract

This article analyzes Álvaro da Costa’s return trip from the Estado da Índia to Lisbon in 1611. The constraints of Costa’s travel allow us to discuss some common assumptions about the character and spirit of early modern travelers and to illustrate some of the limits of travelers’ observations and the peculiar modes of knowledge they displayed. Reading through the many misunderstandings and apparent mistakes that Costa introduced in his Tratado da viagem, the article also explores the complex dynamics of “discovery” and argues that early modern globalization must be understood as a manyfold process. Individuals not only disposed of different information, but they also used very diverse frameworks to interpret and make sense of such information. The article contrasts Costa’s use of older but resilient interpretative frameworks with more modern and more accurate interpretations and shows that very different perceptions about world connections coexisted during the early modern age. In particular, the article focuses on how Costa actively combined his observations of the ruins of Babylon and other cities he found on his route with previous paradigms of universal history, such as biblical theories on the historical succession of empires.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Adelman, J. (2017) "What is global history now?" Aeon [Digital magazine]. Available at: https://aeon.co/essays/is-global-history-still-possible-or-has-it-had-its-moment [Accessed: 14 Dec. 2018].

Andrade, T. (2010) "A Chinese Farmer, Two African boys, and a Warlord: Toward a Global Microhistory." Journal of World History, 21, 4, pp. 573-591.

Bayly, C. (2004) The Birth of the Modern World 1780-1914. Global Connections and Comparisons. Oxford: Wiley Blackwell.

Benton, L. (2002) Law and Colonial Cultures. Legal Regimes in World History, 1400-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511512117

Biedermann, Z. (2011) "Um viajante sem mapas? Figueroa e a cartografia da Pérsia." In: R. M. Loureiro and M. Resende, eds., Estudos sobre Don García de Silva y Figueroa e os Comentarios da embaixada à Pérsia. Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar, pp. 367-393.

Blázquez Martínez, J. M. (2003) "Babilonia." Boletín de la Asociación Española de Orientalistas, 39, pp. 15-51.

Bohrer, F. N. (1998) "Inventing Assyria: Exoticism and Reception in Nineteenth-Century England and France." Art Bulletin, 80, 2, pp. 336-356. https://doi.org/10.2307/3051236

Bosbach, F. (1998) "The European Debate on Universal Monarchy" In: D. Armitage, ed., Theories of Empire, 1450-1800 (Expanding World). Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 81-98.

Buroni, M. (2012) "Displaced Buildings. Pietro della Valle, the Tower of Babel, and the Biography of Archeological Objects." In: The Challenge of the Object: 33rd Congress of the ICHA, Nuremberg 15-20 July 2012, pp. 1425-1428.

Carreira, J. N. (1980) Do Preste João às ruínas da Babilónia: viajantes Portugueses na rota das civilizações orientáis. Lisbon: Comunicação.

Carreira, J. N. (1985a) "Nicolau de Orta Rebelo na senda das civilizações pré-clássicas (1606-1607)." Arquipiélago. História e Filosofia, 7, 1, pp. 83-101.

Carreira, J. N. (1985b) "Frei Gaspar de S. Bernardino: um exegeta 'itinerante'." Didaskalia, 15, 2.

Carreira, J. N. (1997) Outra face do Oriente: o Próximo Oriente em relatos de viagem. Lisbon: Europa-América.

Carreira, J. N. (2003) "A terra santa em relatos portugueses de viagem: séc. XVI-XVII." Cadmo, 13, pp. 55-78.

Carreira, J. N. (2011) "Relação da Jornada e Itinerario da Índia: contactos e dependencias." Anais de História de Além-Mar, 12, pp. 139-152.

Córdoba, J. M. (2005) "Presentación: las huellas borradas." Arbor, 180, 711-712, pp. xiii-xxiii.

Cosgrove, D. (2001) Apollo's Eye. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

Coutinho, G. (1937) Catálogo da exposição histórica da ocupação. Lisbon: Agência Geral das Colónias, vol. 1.

Couto, D., and Loureiro, R. M., eds. (2008) Revisiting Hormuz: Portuguese Interactions in the Persian Gulf Region in the Early Modern Period. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

Cunha, J. T. e (2007) "Armenian Traders in Portuguese Merchant Networks in the Western Indian Ocean in the Early Modern Age." In: S. Chaudhury and K. Kevonian, eds., Les Armeniens dans le commerce asiatique au début de l'ère moderne. Paris: Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, pp. 197-252.

Cunha, J. T. e (2018) "Portugal. Relations with Persia in the Early Modern Age (1500-1750)." In: Encyclopaedia Iranica. Available at: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/portugal-i [Accessed 26 May 2018]

Darwin, J. (2007) After Tamerlane. The Global History of Empire. London: Allen Lane, Penguin.

Das, N. (2016) "Encounter as Process: England and Japan in the Late Sixteenth Century." Renaissance Quarterly, 69, 4, 2016, pp. 1343-1368. https://doi.org/10.1086/690315

De Vito, C. G., and Gerritsen, A., eds. (2017) Micro-Spatial Histories of Global Labour. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-58490-4

Drayton, R., and Motadel, D. (2018) "Discussion: The Futures of Global History." Journal of Global History, 13, 1, pp. 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1740022817000262

Elliott, J. H. (1970) The Old World and the New. 1492-1650. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Fernández Albaladejo, P. (1993) "'Imperio de por sí': la reformulación del poder universal en la temprana Edad Moderna." In: Fragmentos de Monarquía. Madrid: Alianza, 1993, pp. 168-84.

Flores, J. (2015) "Between Madrid and Ophir: Erédia, a Deceitful Discoverer?" In: M. Eliav-Feldon and T. Herzig, eds., Dissimulation and Deceit in Early Modern Europe. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 184-210. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137447494_12

Floor, W., and Hakimzadeh, F. (2007) The Hispano-Portuguese Empire and its Contacts with Safavid Persia, the Kingdom of Hormuz and Yarubid Oman From 1489 to 1720: A Bibliography of Printed Publications 1508-2007. Louvain: Peeters.

Friedman, T. L. (2006) The World Is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Updated and Expanded. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Fuente del Pilar, J. J. (2005) "Pedro Teixeira y su viaje por Mesopotamia." Arbor, 180, 711-712, pp. 627-643. https://doi.org/10.3989/arbor.2005.i711/712.463

Gil Férnandez, L. (2006-2009) El imperio luso-español y la Persia safavida, 2 vols. Madrid: Fundación Universitaria Española.

Ghemawat, P. (2007) Redefining Global Strategy. Crossing Borders in a World Where Differences Still Matter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.

Ghobrial, J.-P. A. (2014) "The Secret Life of Elias of Babylon and the Uses of Global Microhistory." Past & Present, 222, 1, pp. 51-93. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtt024

Graça, L. (1983) A visão do Oriente na literatura portuguesa de viagens: os viajantes portugueses e os itinerários terrestres, 1560-1670. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional-Casa da Moeda.

Grafton, A. (2004) "Kircher's Chronology." In: P. Fidlen, ed., Athanasius Kircher. The Last Man Who Knew Everything. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 183-184.

Grogan, J. (2014) The Persian Empire in English Renaissance Writing, 1549-1622. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137318800

Groves, B. (2012) "'Those Sanctified Places Where our Sauiours Feete had Trode': Jerusalem in Early Modern English Travel Narratives." Sixteenth Century Journal, 43, 3, pp. 681-700.

Gulbenkian, R. (1972) L'ambassade en Perse de Luis Pereira de Lacerda. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.

Hespanha, A. M. (2001) "A constituição do imperio português. Revisão de alguns enviesamentos correntes." In: J. Fragoso, M. F. Bicalho and M. de F. Gouvêa, eds., O Antigo Regime nos trópicos. A dinâmica imperial portuguesa (séculos XVI-XIII). Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira, pp. 163-188.

Hespanha, A. M. (2019) Filhos da terra. Identidades mestiças nos confins da expansão portuguesa. Lisbon: Tinta da China.

Invernizzi, A., ed. (2005) Il Genio vagante. Babilonia, Ctesifonte, Persepoli in racconti di viaggio e testimonianze dei secoli XII-XVIII. Turin: Edizioni dell'Orso.

Levi, G. (2018) "Microhistoria e historia global." Historia Crítica, 69, pp. 21-35. https://doi.org/10.7440/histcrit69.2018.02

Loureiro, R. M. and M. Resende, eds. (2010), Estudos sobre Don García de Silva y Figueroa e os Comentarios da embaixada à Pérsia. Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar.

Majer, I. S. (1982) "Montaigne's Cure: Stones and Roman Ruins." Modern Language Notes, 97, 4, pp. 958-974. https://doi.org/10.2307/2905873

Marzahn, J. (2008) "Le santuaire et le culte du dieu Marduk." In: B. André-Salvini, Babylone. À Babylone, d›hier et d›aujourd›hui. Paris: Musée du Louvre, pp. 168-171.

Mason, P. (1994) "Classical Ethnography and its Influence on the European Perception of the Peoples of the New World." In: W. Haase and M. Reinhold, eds., The Classical Tradition and the Americas. Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 135-172. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110870244.135

Matthee, R. (2009) "The Safavids Under Western Eyes: Seventeenth-Century European Travelers to Iran." Journal of Early Modern History, 13, 2, pp. 137-171. https://doi.org/10.1163/138537809X12498721974624

Matthee, R. (2012) "Safavid Iran Through the Eyes of European Travelers." Harvard Library Bulletin, 23, 1-2, pp. 10-24.

Matthee, R. (2016) "From Splendour and Admiration to Ruin and Condescension: Western Travelers to Iran from the Safavids to the Qajars." Iran. Journal of the British Institute of Persian Studies, 54, 1, pp. 3-22. https://doi.org/10.1080/05786967.2016.11882297

McGowan, M. M. (2004) The Vision of Rome in Late Renaissance France. New Haven: Yale University Press.

Montero Fenollós, J. L. (2008) "La torre de Babel, Herodoto y los primeros viajeros europeos por tierras mesopotámicas." Historiae, 5, pp. 27-50.

Montero Fenollós, J. L. (2011) "The Tower of Babel Before Archaeology. The Ziggurat of Babylon According to European Travellers (XII-XVII Centuries)." Res Antiquitatis, 2, pp. 31-49.

Morán Turina, M. (2009) La memoria de las piedras. Anticuarios, arqueólogos y collecionistas de antigüedades en la España de los Austrias. Madrid: CEEH.

Nederman, C. J. (2005) "Empire and the Historiography of European Political Thought: Marsiglio of Padua, Nicholas of Cusa, and the Medieval/Modern Divide." Journal of the History of Ideas, 66, 1, pp. 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhi.2005.0029

Ooghe, B. (2007) "Mesopotamian Archaeology and Travel Literature: Shifting Relationships." Isimu, 10, pp. 49-63.

Ortega García, P. (2012) "Juan Tadeo de san Eliseo (1574-1634)." Kalakorikos, 17, pp. 161-183.

Osterhammel, J. (2014) The Transformation of the World. A Global History of the Nineteenth Century. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400849949

Padrón, R. (2002) "Mapping Plus Ultra: Cartography, Space, and Hispanic Modernity." Representations, 79, 1, pp. 28-60. https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2002.79.1.28

Pimentel, J. (2001) "Viajes, experimento y metáfora. Quirós, Cook y el doble descubrimiento de la quarta pars incógnita." In: M. D. Elizalde Pérez-Grueso, J. M. Fradera Barcelo, and L. Alonso Álvarez, eds., Imperios y naciones en el Pacífico, vol. 1 (La formación de una colonia: Filipinas). Madrid: CSIC, pp. 27-38.

Pocock, J. G. A. (2003) Barbarism and Religion. The First Decline and Fall, vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Pomeranz, K. (2001) The Great Divergence. China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern World Economy. Princeton: Princeton University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400823499 PMCid:PMC102043

Reid, W. S. (1981), "The Four Monarchies of Daniel in Reformation Historiography." Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 8, 1, pp. 115-23.

Resende, V. (2014) "Ytinerario de Mestre Affonso, solurgiao mor que foi da India." In: D. Thomas, and J. A. Chesworth, ed., Christian-Muslim relations 1500-1900. Volume 6, Western Europe (1500-1600). Leiden: Brill, pp. 377-394.

Rivara, J. H. da C. (1850) Catalogo dos manuscritos da Bibliotheca Publica Eborense. Tomo I. Lisbon: Imprensa Nacional.

Robertson, R. (2002) The Three Waves of Globalization. A History of a Developing Global Consciousness. London: Zed Books.

Rosa, M. L., ed. (2013) D. Álvaro da Costa e a sua descendência, séculos XV-XVII: poder, arte e devoção. Lisbon: Instituto de Estudos Medievais.

Rubiés, J. P. (1991) "Hugo Grotius's Dissertation On the Origin of the American Peoples and the Use of Comparative Methods." Journal of the History of Ideas, 52, 2, pp. 221-244. https://doi.org/10.2307/2709526

Rubiés, J. P. (2011) "A dysfunctional empire? the European context to don García de Silva y Figueroa's embassy to Shah Abbas." In: R. M. Loureiro, and M. Resende, eds., Estudos sobre Don García de Silva y Figueroa e os Comentarios da embaixada à Pérsia. Lisbon: Centro de História de Além-Mar, pp. 85-134.

Stearns, P. N. (2009) Globalization in World History. London and New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203866061

Steger, M. B (2020) Globalization. A Very Short Introduction. 5th ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/actrade/9780198849452.001.0001

Subrahmanyam, S. (2011) Three Ways to be an Alien. Travails and Encounters in the Early Modern World. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv102bdr2

Subrahmanyam, S. (2014) Aux origines de l'histoire globale. Leçons inaugurales du Collège de France. Paris: Collège de France. https://doi.org/10.4000/lettre-cdf.1742

Trivellato, F. (2011) "Is There a Future for Italian Microhistory in the Age of Global History?" California Italian Studies, 2, 1. https://doi.org/10.5070/C321009025

Vine, A. (2010) In Defiance of Time. Antiquarian Writing in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.