Giovanni Battista Ramusio

Giovanni Battista Ramusio (Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni batˈtista raˈmuːzjo]; July 20, 1485 – July 10, 1557) was an Italian geographer and travel writer.

Born in Treviso, Italy, at that time in the Republic of Venice, Ramusio was the son of Paolo Ramusio, a magistrate of the Venetian city-state. In 1505 young Giovanni took a position as secretary to Alvise Mocenigo, then serving as the Republic's ambassador to France; he would spend the rest of his career in Venetian service, and died in Padua. He was keenly interested in geography, and his position ensured that he would receive news of all the latest discoveries from explorers around Europe as they were sent back to Venice. A learned man, fluent in several languages, he began to compile these documents and translated them into Italian, then the most widely understood of the European languages.

Though he himself traveled little, Ramusio published Navigationi et Viaggi ("Navigations and Travels"); a collection of explorers' first-hand accounts of their travels. This was the first work of its kind. It included the accounts of Marco Polo, Niccolò Da Conti, Magellan, Alvar Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca and Giosafat Barbaro, as well as the Descrittione dell’ Africa. The description of China contains the first reference in European literature to tea.

He also published an excerpt of Tomé Pires' work on the Indies, which had come into his hands, though he did not know the name of its author.

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