On 8 August 1671 Ambrosio Bembo set out from Venice with his uncle Marco Bembo, who had been appointed Venetian consul in Aleppo. From there he travelled to Baghdad and Basra and on to western India, returning through Iran and finally arriving back in Venice on 15 April 1675. The account he wrote of this journey, which remained unpublished, was illustrated by G. J. Grélot, whose drawings are included in this excellent edition. This volume also contains a good introduction, two maps and a glossary, and the flowing translation is accompanied by useful and informative notes.

The journal is a delight to read. It is both the personal and often amusing account of the travels of a young Venetian, and a useful source of information on part of the Ottoman empire, Iran and India, and on the Europeans who lived and worked there. At times a shrewd observer of what he saw, Bembo describes carefully the places he visited and the customs he observed. The account highlights the great importance of the religious orders which were omnipresent and a significant tool for the various colonial powers. The interconnectedness of the world also comes out clearly, as does the importance of contacts and networks of introductions. Bembo raised money (with considerable difficulty at times) and negotiated loans in one location to be paid off at another. He was supplied with an endless number of letters of introduction, although such letters did not always secure a generous reception. The level of news circulation appears clearly. While the Europeans in Aleppo used carrier pigeons to obtain information (p. 81), those in Persia circulated the latest news from the West, which as Bembo noted “If … not all true, at least … conformed to the taste of those who told [it]!” (p. 326). Indeed Bembo was surprised at the “differences in the news coming from Europe” (p. 326). Much information was gathered by the various religious orders to whom the Persians, keen to hear what was happening in Europe, went for news. In return they informed the fathers about events in Persia. “Thus, although later and with some alterations, European accounts reach Isfahan, as does news of all the world” (p. 327).

Given his background, Bembo was clearly well informed about the Europeans in Aleppo. His account gives a good idea of their relations and of their entertainment which consisted of “exchanging frequent meal invitations by day and night” (p. 72), and whose riotous receptions involved much toasting and breaking of glass, on one occasion the floor becoming a lake of wine (p. 59). Regardless of such entertainments, there were distinct tensions between the English and the French, which could result in ructions at official occasions, as they did on the arrival of Bembo's uncle when an Englishman hit a Frenchman with a rod (p. 49), or at the ceremonies welcoming the new Venetian consul when the English chancellor tried to pass in front of the French chancellor at a narrow point in the road (p. 405).

Bembo's account is also replete with a wealth of small details: about playing table tennis in a tavern in Aleppo (p. 72), or the rare cats with long, thin, shiny, curly hair like that of a poodle who were sent as a gift from Basra to the viceroy of Goa (p. 149), about how people dealt with a parasitic worm in Bandar ʿAbbas (p. 145), or the treatment for cholera in Goa which involved burning the heels of the patient (pp. 246–7). Bembo tried local customs, such as the massages in Goa used by Portuguese men to help them sleep; this involved rubbing, or the moving of joints, or pinching, tickling and slight scratching all over, or, since the work was undertaken by women, “other, greater confidences and freedom”. At first bothered by this treatment which kept him from sleeping, Bembo then took to it and enjoyed it (p. 235). He did not, however, enjoy the Persian bath for “the employees of the bathhouse wash one in a very improper way. They climb on one and rub the whole body indiscreetly; as a result, during the whole time I was in Persia, I did not want to go into their baths anymore” (p. 288). Not all food appealed: lokum was “nauseating to eat” but pretty to look at (p. 403), and he failed totally to appreciate the acorn, accepting a fistful out of politeness but letting them fall to the ground without anyone seeing (p. 386). Eating with his hands was something he could not do, and on one occasion a spoon had to be found especially for him (p. 271).

Bembo, who comes over in his account as a thoroughly likeable, open young man, was clearly interested in people, and his account is full of little vignettes of those he met, such as Francesco da Venezia who had had thirty small pieces of bone removed from his head as a result of a wound received fighting the Dutch (p. 210). The wife of Colonel Bach in Mumbai was “a rather spirited English lady” (p. 218); the Portuguese women in Goa “live in constant laziness, since they have nothing to do, not even for entertainment” (pp. 234–5), were “excessively passionate” as a result of their idleness and betel chewing (which turned their teeth and lips red and made them attractive), and “know not how to keep quiet” (p. 235); the Persian ruler was “not too inclined to the Europeans, since he is too much of a ladies' man” (p. 327); while the English “are wont to be offended and not to give heed to excuses, even legitimate ones” (p. 332), though he enjoyed the company of the wives of English merchants with whom he “conversed … gladly, since they were very free and at their ease” (p. 217).

Tormented by “the annoyance of the most insolent flies” at Basra (p. 130) or those of Lar in Persia who were “the most insolent and biting I have ever experienced” (p. 294), Bembo suffered from the intense heat, in particular in Surat where “without any exercise I was sweating like a fountain, something that leaves a person very tired” (p. 186). In Persia the sun gave him nose bleeds, something very uncomfortable, especially while riding (p. 295).

Bembo wrote at the beginning of his account: “I have wanted to set down in these pages in a smooth and easy narrative so that the bother that I suffered alone during long wanderings, attempted by few and to few granted, may bring pleasure to all those who, during the leisure of domestic tranquility, may want to spend only a little time in reading them” (p. 35). Thanks to this translation and edition this ambition has been realized.