Relation Journaliere Du Voyage Du Levant ...

Beauvau, diplomat and general, undertook this voyage beginning in November 1604. He was a career diplomat who had previously served the Emperor Rudolf II during the Ottoman-Hungarian campaigns. At the time of this journey he was in the service of Jean de Gontaut-Biron, Baron de Salignac, French ambassador to the Porte (1605-1610) and, according to Tobler, apparently travelled in company with him. They set out from Venice or a nearby port and sailed down the Adriatic, through the Aegean and on to the Holy Land. If the illustrations are a true indication of the extent of this voyage, Beauvau and his party travelled all over the Eastern Mediterranean during this period, reaching Alexandria and Cairo and returning to Italy via Sicily and Naples. In fact, the book forms a sort of isolario. Most of the maps (‘pourtraicts des lieux’) are after earlier works by Giacomo Franco, Donato Bertelli and GiovanFrancesco Camocio.