Della Valle Rout in Persia, Italian traveler to Iran

About this tour

IRANA Tour aims to choose the world celebrities’ travel journal in its cultural trip working group as a road map. Itineraries are not just road maps, but they are opportunities to see the world through the eyes of their writers. A vision that would complement our personal vision!

Della Valle as a religious character begins his journey with a holy motivation. He begins his internal journey before travelling the mundane road. This sacred motivation can be observed throughout his long journey and is effective in his sudden route changing. In fact, Della Valle acquiesced in divine destiny and he completely acts based on his intuitions on the way.

For example, joining the Shah Abbas’ army and his trip to India were quite different from his previous plan. And when he feels this destiny in his divine path, he changes his path to fight the enemies of Christianity.

Moving along the Della Valle’s direction gives tourists the chance to experience some countries like Iran, Istanbul, and India in one of their most important historical eras. Della Valle went to Istanbul in the period that the greatest empire in the history of this country was governing the Islam World. After the defeat of the Christian Byzantine, the empire caused a huge gap between East and West. A gap whose effects can be seen to these days! Today, Istanbul is the only Eurasian city in the world and the waters of the Bosporus are the border between Europe and Asia and the West, during a cruise, suddenly and geographically becomes the East in the blink of an eye.

On the other hand, the Safavid Empire in Iran is one of the main empires after Islam. Safavids turned Iran into a major regional power through the creation of religious unity and they were the greatest enemy and competitor of the Ottoman Empire. Isfahan which is known as Nesfe Jahan(half of the world) received such a title since this era.

Della Valle realistic and detailed look was an accurate picture of the countries that he visited. During the trip, we will read this travel journal together and visit the places discussed there. Della Valle takes us to the past by a time machine. Perhaps, it can be said that our journey as his travel covers both mundane and spiritual dimensions. This section “Journey into the depths of history” will be intangible and spiritual.

Pietro Della Valle was born in the spring of 1586 in Rome. He was defeated in love at a young age and then he, with religious motivations, began a long journey out of his town and country.

He was to reach the Holy Land. Therefore, in order to enter into the Orient, he chose Constantinople (Istanbul), i.e. the disconnecting or connecting point of the East and West. He lived there for a while. Then, he could not tolerate Christians’ wretched and stressful life and traveled to Iran to find a solution. At that time, the Sofia’s government has biggest enmity and confrontation with the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople. Della Valle came to Iran to join the Iranian army to fight the Ottomans who were his most hated enemies of Christians as well as to find ways to move Christians in Constantinople toward Iran.

In the course of his visit to Isfahan, he passed through Hamedan and Golpayegan and when he came to Isfahan, Shah Abbas the Great had left the capital and went to Farah Abad. Then, In order to meet the king, Della Valle went to Farah Abad, Mazandaran. The king warmly welcomed him and he lived there for long time. After useful discussions with King, he became interested in him and in Iran. He gladly joined the army and went to fight with the Ottomans. After the war, he visited Ardabil and Shiraz and left Iran to India in order to oust the Portuguese from Hormuz. Among the States India, he visited Gochrat, Goa, and southern states and eventually returns to his country.