Giosafat Barbaro

Giosafat Barbaro (also Giosaphat or Josaphat) (1413–1494) was a member of the Venetian Barbaro family. He was a diplomat, merchant, explorer and travel writer. He was unusually well-travelled for someone of his times.

Giosafat Barbaro was born to Antonio and Franceschina Barbaro in a palazzo on the Campo di Santa Maria Formosa. He became a member of the Venetian Senate in 1431. In 1434, he married Nona Duodo, daughter of Arsenio Duodo. Giosafat and Nona had three daughters and a son, Giovanni Antonio.

From 1436 to 1452 Barbaro traveled as a merchant to the Genoese colony Tana on the Sea of Azov. During this time the Golden Horde was disintegrating due to political rivalries.

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. 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. When the weather proved too severe, they returned 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. Barbaro went as an emissary to the Tatars to persuade them not to attack Tana. Later, Barbaro was part of a group that drove off a hundred Circassian raiders. Barbaro visited many cities in the Crimea, including Solcati, Soldaia, Cembalo, and Caffa. Barbaro also traveled to Russia, where he visited Casan and Novogorod.

...
Wikipedia