The Commentaries of D. Garcia de Silva y Figueroa on his Embassy to ShAh 'AbbAs Ⅰ of Persia on Behalf of Philip Ⅲ, King of Spain

摘要

The years since Iran's revolution have witnessed a massive, indeed exponential, expansion in the publication of primary-source materials of crucial import to the study of the country's modern history, a period whose onset is usually dated to the Safavid capture of Tabriz in 1501. In particular for the Safavid period, often dated from that politico-military event to the Afghan capture of Esfahan in 1722, scholars now have to hand a vast array of primary materials in Persian and Arabic as well as in a range of European languages. These encompass religious writings, court chronicles, court, diplomatic and commercial documents and, of course, travel accounts. The languages include English, but also Dutch, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish. Turkish- and Armenian-language materials are available as well. The present volume, as the title suggests, is the translation of the full text of Silva y Figueroa's (d. 1624) commentary on his ten-year voyage to visit the Safavid Shah Abbas I (d. 1629). Originally conceived of in the 1970s, the project really only got started in the mid-2ooos benefitting, as the opening remarks note (pp. 3-4), from the simultaneous, growing scholarly interest in Spanish and Portuguese activities in this period, both in the Persian Gulf and beyond.