VALLE, PIETRO DELLA (1586-1652), Italian traveller in the East, came of a noble Roman family, and was born on April I I, 1586, in the family palace built by Cardinal Andrea. He served against the Moors of Barbary, but also became a member of the Roman academy of the Umoristi, and acquired some reputation as a versifier and rhetorician. The idea of travelling in the East was suggested by a disappointment in love, as an alternative to suicide, and was ripened to a fixed purpose by a visit to the learned Mario Schipano, professor of medicine in Naples, to whom the record of Pietro's travels was addressed in the form of very elab orate letters, based on a full diary. Before leaving Naples he took a vow of pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and, sailing from Venice in 1614, reached Constantinople, where he remained for more than a year, and acquired a good knowledge of Turkish and a little Arabic. In September 1615 he sailed for Alexandria with a suite of nine persons. From Alexandria he went on to Cairo, and, after an excursion to Mount Sinai, left Cairo for the Holy Land in March 1616, in time to assist at the Easter celebrations at Jerusa lem. Having visited the holy sites, he journeyed by Damascus to Aleppo, and thence to Baghdad, where he married a Syrian Chris tian named Maani, a native of Mardin, who died in 1621. He now desired to visit Persia; but, as that country was then at war with Turkey, he had to leave Baghdad by stealth in Jan. 1617. Accom panied by his wife he proceeded by Hamadan to Isfahan, and joined Shah Abbas in a campaign in northern Persia, in the sum mer of 1618. Here he was well received at court. On his return
to Isfahan he began to think of returning by India rather than Turkey; but the state of his health, and the war between Persia and the Portuguese at Ormuz, created difficulties.
In Oct. 1621 he started from Isfahan, and visiting Persepolis and Shiraz, made his way to the coast; but it was not till Jan. 1623, that he found passage for Surat on the English ship "Whale." In India he remained till Nov. 1624, his headquarters being Surat and Goa. He was at Muscat in Jan. 1625, and at Basra in March. In May he started by the desert route for Aleppo, and took ship at Alexandretta on a French vessel. Touching at Cyprus he reached Rome on March 28, 1626, and was received with much honour by Pope Urban VIII., who appointed him a gentleman of his bedchamber. He died at Rome on April 21, 1652.
In Pietro della Valle's lifetime there were printed—(i) a Funeral Oration on his Wife Maani, whose remains he brought with him to Rome and buried there (1627) ; (2) an Account of Shah Abbas, printed at Venice in 1628, but not published; (3) the first part of the letter describing his Travels (Turkey, 165o). The Travels in Persia (2 parts) were published by his sons in 1658, and the third part (India) in 1663. An English translation appeared in 1665 (fol.). Of the Italian text the edition of Brighton, 1843 (2 vols. 8vo.), is more esteemed than the other reprints. It contains a sketch of the prolix, with a tendency to the rhetorical ; but he is exact, and very instructive, so that his work still possesses high value.