LAKE OF COMO

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605 -1689) was a French traveller and pioneer of trade with India. His his father Gabriel and uncle Melchior were established geographers and mapmakers, who had moved to Paris from Antwerp after the Spanish conquest of the city.

Tavenier first joined two French fathers, M. de Chapes and M. de St Liebau, who had received a mission to the Levant. He reached Constantinople early in 1631, where he spent eleven months, and then proceeded by Tokat, Erzerum and Erivan to Persia. His farthest point in this first journey was Isfahan. He returned by Baghdad, Aleppo, Alexandretta, Malta and Italy, and was again in Paris in 1633.

In September 1638 he began a second journey (1638-43) by Aleppo to Persia, then to India as far as Agra and Golkonda. His visited the court of the Emperor Shah Jahan and the diamond mines, a reconaissance which proved useful in later travels, in which Tavernier travelled as a merchant of the highest rank, trading in jewels and other precious wares, and finding his chief customers among the greatest princes of the East. Tavenier made 4 more trips to Asia. In his third (1643-49) he went as far as Java, and returned by the Cape.

In his last three journeys (1651-55, 1657-62, 1664-68), Tavenier did not travel beyond India. The details of these voyages are often obscure; but they completed an extraordinary knowledge of the routes of overland Eastern trade, and brought the now famous merchant into close and friendly communication with the greatest Oriental rulers.