Giosafat Barbaro (also spelled Giosaphat or Josaphat; 1413–1494) was a member of the Venetian patrician Barbaro family. He was a diplomat, merchant, explorer and travel writer.A new general biographical dictionary, Volume 3, Hugh James Rose, Henry John Rose, 1857, pg. 137 A. M. Piemontese, "'Barbaro, Giosafat". Encyclopædia Iranica, Vol. III, Fasc. 7, p. 758. He was unusually well-travelled for someone of his times, traveling to the Byzantine Empire, the Crimea, Russia, the Peloponnese, Poland, Germany, Albania, Persia, the Empire of Trebizond and Georgia.Una famiglia veneziana nella storia: i Barbaro, Michela Marangoni, Manlio Pastore Stocchi, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti, 1996, pg. 120,
Family Giosafat Barbaro was born in a palazzo on the northwest side of the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa in Castello, Venice.Die persische Karte: venezianisch-persische Beziehungen um 1500; Reiseberichte venezianischer Persienreisender, Otto H. Storz, Berlin, 2009, p.39 His father was Antonio Barbaro, son of Domenico."I Viaggi in Persia degli ambasciatori veneti Barbaro e Contarini", Laurence Lockhart; Raimondo Morozzo della Rocca; Maria Francesca Tiepolo, Venezia, A spese della R. Deputazion, 1973, pg. 16 His father died when Giosafat was young, while serving as Count and Captain of Scutari. Antonio Barbaro wrote two wills, in 1423 and 1424, with his wife Franceschina and his brothers Andrea and Lorenzo Barbaro as executors. The wills show that Giosafat Barbaro had several siblings; Giacomo, Barbara, Carlo, Polissena, Daria, and Marina; with the last two sisters nuns in San Lorenzo.
Giosafat Barbaro's mother was Franceschina Quartari, the daughter of Nicolo Quartari. In her wills, written in 1421 and 1427, one of the bequests is to the Scuola di San Giosafat in Santa Maria Formosa. Her second will mentions an additional daughter, Quirina, who was married to Andrea Barbo. Barbaro's grandfather, Nicolo Quartari, was a wealthy silk merchant with a house and shop in the district of San Zulian."La comunità dei lucchesi a Venezia", Luca Molà, Venezia, Istituto veneto di scienze, lettere ed arti, 1994, pg. 181 In the 1379 land registry, he was registered for 5,500 lire, a level reached or exceeded by only about seventy commoners. In the fifteenth century, Quartari brides brought dowries averaging 3100 ducats, though the legal limit was only 1600 ducats."A Renaissance of Conflicts: Visions and Revisions of Law and Society in Italy and Spain", John A. Marino, Thomas Kuehn; Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 2004, pg. 268
Giosafat Barbaro was presented to the Balla d'Oro by his widowed mother Franceschina in 1431, which made him eligible to join the Venetian Senate. Studi biografici e bibliografici sulla storia della geografia in Italia], Roma, Società geografica italiana; 1882, pg. 140 We lack information on his education, but Barbaro was a skilled geographer, linguist, and negotiator. He learned some Crimean Tatar, Persian, Arabic, and Greek during his travels. Barbaro was a member of the Scuola Grande di San Marco."Venetian narrative painting in the age of Carpaccio", Patricia Fortini Brown, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1988., pg. 74 , ISBN 0300040253
In 1434, he married Cenone (Nona) Duodo, daughter of Arsenio Duodo. Tradition says the Duodo family was involved in trade with the Far East.
Giosafat Barbaro's will of 1473 names his wife Cenone; his sister Polissena; Polisenna's husband Matteo Venier; his brother-in-law Niccolo Duodo; and his daughter Suordamor's husband, Natale Nadal; as executors. In the will he mentions his children: Zuanne Antonio; Madaluzza; an adopted son Alvise; Suordamor; Chiara a natural-born nun at Santa Eufemia Monastery; and Franceschina, a nun at San Lorenzo. In 1477, while Barbaro was Ambassador to Persia, his wife Cenone presented their son to the Balla d'Oro, indicating that Zuanne Antonio was born around 1459. Giosafat Barbaro's will of 1492 names his wife Cenone; his son-in-law Natale Nadal; his daughter Anzola's husband, Marco Zulian; and his son Zuanne Antonio as executors. The will mentions Giosafat's daughters Madaluzza, Chiara, and Franceschina; his son Zuanne Antonio's wife Suordamor Bembo, daughter of Pietro Bembo, and their daughter Lucrezia. Giosafat's wife Cenone outlived him, writing a will in 1495.
Travels to Tana
From 1436 to 1452 Barbaro traveled as a merchant to Tana on the Sea of Azov. Biographie universelle, ancienne et moderne, J Fr Michaud; Louis Gabriel Michaud, Paris, Chez Michaud Freres Libraires, 1811, pg. 327 During this time the Golden Horde was disintegrating due to political rivalries.
The conquest of Central Asia by the Mongols had opened the Black Sea as a trading hub for goods from China, Persia, and parts of Russia."Les Vénitiens à La Tana (Azov) au XVe siècle", Bernard Doumerc, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Issue 28, 1987, pg. 5 The Venetians settled in Soldaïa and Trebizond, but soon focused on Tana, which was better situated on both land and water trade routes. They would later settle in Maurocastro as well. Tana was the connecting point for the Danube, Polish and Persian trade routes, as well as the route beginning in Astrakhan that led to China."Les Italiens et la découverte de la Moscovie ", E. Pommier, Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, Issue 65, 1953, pg. 251 Barbaro mentioned how six or seven trade galleys came from Venice every year for the silks and spices from Astakhan as well as other goods. He also described annual shipments of 40,000 cattle to Central Asia and caravans with 6000 animals that went to India. Among the goods traded in Tana were caviar, salted fish, wine, amber, salt, grain, fur, horses, and slaves, as well as spices and silk.
In July 1436, Barbaro started his first trip to Tana aboard one of the two trade galleys sent by the Senate of Venice. Barbaro's father-in-law, Arsenio Duodo (also Diedo) had been elected Consul to Tana and was also traveling on the galleys."Delle Crimea", Michele Giuseppe Canale -, 1855, p. 477 The captains of the galleys initially refused to continue past Constantinople, though they eventually did reach Tana. Initially, Consul Duodo had to stay in Constantinople at his own expense and was not reimbursed by the Senate until two years later. Giosaphat Barbaro was probably not the first member of his family to travel to Tana, there are records of several members of the Barbaro family who had engaged in trade there before his arrival.
In the fifteenth century Tana was a modestly-sized town mostly or entirely surrounded by walls with towers. Commercial rivals Genoa and Venice fortified their sections of the town. Byzantine and Russian quarters were near the Orthodox Church of St. Nicholas. There were Jewish and Zichian quarters as well. Barbaro owned a house inside the town of Tana. The main source of income that Barbaro mentions are fisheries, located about 40 miles up the Don River from Tana. These fisheries (peschieres) were built along sections of the river bank where fish were caught and salted and caviar was prepared. Barbaro probably visited his peschieres often, in order to monitor the workers and ship the product back to Tana for transport back to Venice. Barbaro also appears to have traded in precious stones, trading with Tatar merchants whose wares appear to have come from as far as China.
Barbaro did not spend all of the years from 1436 to 1452 in Tartary. Since there was regular trade between Venice and Tana at this time, it seems likely Barbaro went to Tana to trade and returned to Venice for the winter over this time. He did not spend all of his time in Tana, from there he also traveled to the Don River, and to Georgia, Shirvan and Daghistàn. Barbaro also traveled to Russia, where he visited Casan and Novogorod. In November 1437, Barbaro heard of the burial mound of the last King of the Alans, about 20 miles up the Don River from Tana.Black Sea, Neal Ascherson, New York, Farrar, Straus and Girouxg, 1996, pg. 128, "Venice & antiquity: the Venetian sense of the past", Patricia Fortini Brown, New Haven, Conn. ; London: Yale University Press, 1996, pg. 152 , ISBN 0300067003 Barbaro and six other men, a mix of Venetian and Jewish merchants, hired 120 men to excavate the kurgan, which they hoped would contain treasure. They left when the weather proved too severe, later returning in March 1438, but found no treasure. Barbaro analytically and precisely recorded information about the layers of earth, coal, ashes, millet, and fish scales that composed the mound. Modern scholarship concludes that it was not a burial mound, but a kitchen midden that had accumulated over centuries of use. The remains of Barbaro's excavation was found in the 1920s by Russian archeologist Alexander Alexandrovich Miller.
In 1438, the Great Horde under Küchük Muhammad advanced on Tana. History of the Mongols: from the 9th to the 19th century], Sir Henry Hoyle Howorth, 1888, The University of California, pg. 295 Arsenio Duodo, the Venetian Consul to Tana sent Giosafat Barbaro as an emissary to the Tatars to persuade them not to attack the city.Mehmed the Conqueror & His Time, Franz Babinger, Trans. Ralph Manheim, Princeton University Press; 1992, p.319 Later, Barbaro was part of a group of less than fifty that drove off a hundred Circassian raiders. Barbaro visited many cities in the Crimea, including Solcati, Soldaia, Cembalo, and Caffa. In 1438, Barbaro traveled to Moscow up the Volga River, where he visited Kazan (Casan) and Novogorod, "which had already come under the power of the Muscovites" (che gia era venuta in potere de'Moscoviti). He reported that Russian merchants sailed to Astrakhan every year. Barbaro also described the worship and sacrifice of horses among the Maksha people.
The Tatars attacked Tana in 1442, setting fire to the Venetian quarter, though many of the people survived due to the actions of Consul Marco Duodo, Arsenio's brother. The fire started in the bazaar near the fortress and was fanned by a strong north wind."Revue de l'Orient latin, Volume 7", Charles Henri Auguste Schefer, E. Leroux, 1899, pg. 65 Four breaches were made in the city walls, one by Barbaro himself, for people to escape, but even then women and children needed to be lowered over the walls by rope. The fire burned for three hours until a combination of human efforts and rain extinguished it and over four hundred people died and the goods warehouses were destroyed.
In 1442, there was also concern over the Turks raiding Venetian shipping. Between that and the siege and fire at Tana, the new Consul Pietro Pesaro was stranded in Caffa for several weeks at his own expense before he was able to relieve Marco Duodo. That July, the Venetian Senate considered not sending trade galleys to Tana that year. Instead they ordered Lorenzo Moro to use the war galleys from Negroponte and Naplia to escort the trade galleys commanded by Leonardo Duodo to and from Tana. Giosafat Barbaro visited many cities in the Crimea, including Solcati, Soldaia, Cembalo, and Caffa. He believed some of the local people were Gothic in origin based on one of his German servants being able to communicate with them in his own language.