Gemelli Careri

• Illustration — Additional artwork from the Italian version of the book "Giro Del Mondo". • Relazione delle Campagne d'Ungheria (1689) • Viaggi in Europa (1693) • Giro Del Mondo (1699) • Part 1 (Turkey and Middle East) • Part 2 (Persia) • Part 3 (Hindustan) • Part 4 (China) • Part 5 (Philippines) • Part 6 (New Spain) • Voyage Round the World (1704, London: English Translation - a.k.a. John Francis Gemelli Careri) • Voyage du Tour du Monde (1719, Paris: French Translation - a.k.a. Jean Francois Gemelli Careri)

• Illustration — Gemelli Careri's Map of the Aztec Migration from Aztlan to Chapultapec from "Voyage Round the World", 1704 The aim of Giro Del Mondo - a faithful description of the countries visited - was emphasized by Giosef-Antonio Guerrieri in his preface. While pointing out the difference between the account of a journey and "an imaginary journey", Guerrieri praised Gemelli Careri for the reliability of his experiences, and criticized those who were prone to fantasize over geographic maps. • Illustration — Crest image taken from the Italian version of the book "Giro Del Mondo". For many years scholars and experts did not consider Gemelli Careri's adventurous journey authentic. Later, it was ascertained that he collected important historical documents in order to identify correctly those exotic realities in greater detail. The sixth volume of Giro Del Mondo, which covers only Mexico, contains information gathered from codices that existed prior to the Conquest, which he received access to via Don Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora; it also contains several illustrations of Aztec warriors gathered from these codices. In New Spain, Gemelli Careri had the opportunity to study the Mesoamerican pyramids carefully (their affinity to the Egyptian pyramids led him to believe that the ancient Egyptians and the Amerindians both descended from the inhabitants of Atlantis), which Sigüenza had long held. Due to lack of funds, Sigüenza himself had been unable to publish much on the ancient Mexicans, but through Gemelli's work was able to disseminate his ideas and even drawings from the ancient Mexican manuscripts. • Illustration — Additional artwork from the French version of the book Voyage du Tour du Monde (1719, Paris): French Translation of "Giro Del Mondo". An 1849 release of The Calcutta Review (a periodical now published by the University of Calcutta), stated the following about Gemelli's writings concerning India: "In a previous number of this Review we made an attempt to describe something of the Court and Camp of the best and wisest prince Muhainmedan India had ever beheld (Aurungzebe, Mogul emperor of Hindustan)... To this we are urged by two main considerations, the character of the age, and the materials at our command.... Sir H. M. Elliot's work has... met with, to a certain extent, adverse criticism, and some doubts have been raised as to the soundness, or the justice, of its conclusions. It is therefore (possible that readers may be willing) to peruse a description of the Government of Aurungzebe, taken not from native historians, but from the accounts of men who saw with the eyes of travelers. "From three men, who all visited India during the reign of Aurungzebe, the most valuable and the most curious information is attainable... The second of the triumvirate, on whom we mainly rely, is the Doctor John Francis Gemelli Careri. Natural curiosity and domestic misfortunes were, he tells us, his motives for traveling. Of the three (sources this paper is based), he is the most discursive in his narration, the most piquant in his anecdotes, the most amusing in his simplicity. As he traveled for no one particular aim, but to see and to hear, there are few Indian topics, on which he does not give us something. Natural productions, the beasts and the birds, manners, Hindu theology, state maxims, the causes of Portuguese supremacy and degradation, anecdotes of the camp, the convent, and the Harem, accidents by water and land, complaints of personal inconvenience, and remarks on the tendency of Eastern despotism, are scattered plentifully throughout a narrative, which owes very much to the author's own liveliness and observation, but occasionally something, we are compelled to say, to the labours of others who had gone before. His plagiarism is, however, confined to specifications of caste or creed. Where he saw or suffered personally, his narrative is clear, picturesque, and beyond suspicion." Italian Capuchin friar Ilarione da Bergamo had read Gemelli's account of New Spain when he wrote his travel narrative in the late eighteenth century. He refrained from going into detail in some descriptions because Gemelli had already given a full account.