Abstract
Henry Blount’s strenuous self-representations in the opening pages of his Voyage to the Levant (1636) outline his preparations before starting on a journey from Christian Europe into the Ottoman Empire. Known for his precocious wit, Blount portrays himself as a well-educated man of his times, a learned and yet sceptical observer seeking to contribute to knowledge currently unavailable from the records.
I was of opinion, that hee who would behold these times in their greatest glory, could not find a better Scene then Turky.
Blount, Voyage, p. 4
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Notes
Blount’s was hardly an original observation, but one repeated by generations of visitors since 1466, at least, when George Trapezuntios declared to Mehmed the Conqueror: ‘The seat of the Roman Empire is Constantinople… Therefore you are the legitimate Emperor of the Romans… And he who is and remains Emperor of the Romans is also Emperor of the whole earth’; cited by Mansel, Constantinople, p. 1. Compare Jean de Thevenot: ‘All who have seen Constantinople, agree in this, That it is the best situated City in the World; so that it would seem to be design’d by Nature, forbearing Rule and Command over the whole Earth’ (Travels, 1687, 1: 19). The Irish soldier John Richards, who visited in the 1690s, observed: ‘It would be but to little Purpose to delate my selfe in giving the Topographical discription of this most famous Citty, it haveing bin done allready by aboundance of Ingenious men of all nations. Yet something I will say because that it the most desired is of any other in the World att least nature may truly say that she has Impoverished her selfe to render it as it once was deservedly the mistres of the world…the climate is most happy and the Aire so verry good, that the Inhabitants say themselves that were it not for the Plague they should live for ever’ (BL Ms Stowe 462, ff. 33v–34).
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© 2004 Gerald MacLean
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MacLean, G.M. (2004). On Becoming a Passenger. In: The Rise of Oriental Travel. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511767_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230511767_12
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