Francesco Carletti

Francesco Carletti (* 1573?; † 1636 ) was a Florentine merchant, traveler and chronicler. He is considered to be the first person to circumnavigate the world not as a member of an organized expedition, but as an individual traveler.

Life

At the age of 21, he and his father, Antonio Carletti, set out on a short journey to the Cape Verde Islands in the matter of slave trade , a departure that turned into an eight-year voyage (1594-1602) with a circumnavigation. They wanted to sell the 75 slaves they had acquired in Cape Verde in Cartagena , but since the prices there were in the basement, they decided to travel on to Lima in Peru, where slaves in the local silver mines fetched a better price. With the silver acquired there, father and son went to Mexico. From there they wanted to start trading with Asia, importing silk , porcelain and spices from the Philippines to Mexico. Her business continued via Japan to Macau , Portugal , where Antonio Carletti died in 1598. With the wealth he had acquired, Francesco tried to return home on the Portuguese trade routes. It was not until 1606 that he returned to Florence , almost penniless , after his acquired fortune had been stolen from him by a Dutch privateer near St. Helena and Carletti had then tried three and a half years in the Netherlands for the return of his fortune without success .

He presented a manuscript of his travelogue Ragionamenti Ferdinando I de 'Medici , who wanted to turn the port of Livorno into a major international hub for trade with the East. However, it was not published in Italian until almost a hundred years later in 1701, but was later translated into many languages.

The first part reports on Carletti's travels in Central America , Panama , Mexico , down to South America , Colombia , and via Peru back to Mexico via Acapulco . The second part of the work is about the Philippines , where he spent over a year, mainly in Luzon and Manila , then from China and Japan . It is a rare and notable account of Southeast Asia , China, and Japan, written from the perspective of the adventurer and merchant.

The trip

Fonts

• Ragionamenti di Francesco Carletti Fiorentino sopra le cose da lui vedute ne 'suoi viaggi si dell' Indie Occidentali, e Orientali Come d'altri Paesi. Florence 1701.
  Trip around the world 1594. Experiences of a Florentine merchant. From the Italian by Ernst Bluth. Erdmann, Herrenalb / Black Forest 1966.

Web links

• Literature by and about Francesco Carletti in the catalog of the German National Library
• Francesco Carletti, esploratore fiorentino del XVII secolo. In: Sullacrestadellonda.it. Archived from the original on March 6, 2016 (Italian). 
• Merchant's Account Of Japan, China, The Philippines (English)
• JH Elliott: Merchants and Pirates . In: The New York Review . December 3, 1964 (English, nybooks.com ). (Book review)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow, Andrea Pagni: EL VIAJE DE FRANCESCO CARLETTI (1594-1606) . In: Dispositio . tape 17 , no. 42/43 , 1992, pp. 37-51 , JSTOR : 41491683 (Spanish).