Lots of the work on Safavid Isfahan sees it as it is now – and not as the work-in-progress that many of the Isfahanis, and the European travellers, saw when they visited thoughout the seventeenth century. This is surely wrong! This section aims to bring out some of this – focusing especially on some less …
I have tried in this part of the website to give a flavour of the impressive maydan that Shah Abbas imagined within the Safavid architectural ensemble in Isfahan. Archaeological and textual sources make it clear that this maydan was constructed in two distinct phases: first in 1590 and then, over a decade later, in 1602. …
One of the ways that Herbert made his observations intelligible – and appropriately splendid – was by comparing the locales he visited in Persia with places that were already known to his audience. Persian authors did this too: Natanzi, for example, declared the 1590 Isfahani qaysariya “like one that was [once] in Tabriz”[1]. While Persians …
Herbert’s later editions had lots of ‘scholarly’ additions (as well as the occasional poem). Following on what he described as his “poore [sic] reading”[1] Herbert started referencing other – and especially classical – authors[2]. This approach was shared by many Europeans: Pietro della Valle, for example, did the same. Although this has been described as …
In his 1634 and 1638 editions, Herbert does not seem to notice that his illustration of the maydan shows “a Mosque East” on the western side[1]. He captions the image: “Take the outside of this brave Fabrick [sic] well presented”[2]. By 1665, he is more circumspect: “The outside of this noble Burse has this form, …
The “massive scale and orderly disposition” that Babaie has suggested was important to the Persians[1] is focused on much more explicitly in later-published Western accounts – perhaps linked to the rise in Europe of Palladianism. Della Valle, for example, wrote of the “porticos” around the maydan being: “the most beautiful, the most equal, and of the …
In Herbert’s later editions the maydan seems to have grown, being described as: “a thousand paces from North to South, and from East to West above two hundred”[1]. Herbert was not the only traveller who struggled to measure the maydan. I had already myself noticed how wildly different all the measurements were, when I came …
Herbert visited Isfahan for “above twentie days, and no time idle” in 1627[1]. In each of his published editions the maydan was a high point: in 1634, the “chiefe ornament of the Citie… and to say truth, all the bravery, concourse, wealth and Trade is comprised in her”[2]; and from 1638, “without doubt as spacious, …
Lord Curzon has described Herbert’s work as: “by far the most amusing work [on Persia] that has ever been published”[1]. Although he visited Iran in 1626-29 – after della Valle and Figueroa – his account was made publicly available much more quickly. The first edition of A relation of some yeares travaile.. Into Afrique and …
Many more travellers visited – and eulogised[1] – the commercial version of the maydan, successively flanked as it was by glorious monuments. Publication delays, however, significantly affected the order in which travellers’ accounts could be read by – and so, be influential upon – their Western audiences. For example, Pietro della Valle visited in 1617-23 …