Odorico da Pordenone (1316-1318),[9] Friar Jordanus (1321-1323, and
1330)[10] and Giovanni de Marignolli (1347).[11] In the fifteenth
century Henry III of Castile sent Ruy Gonzales de Clavijo as ambassador
to Timur, and towards the end of that century several Venetian
Ambassadors, Caterino Zeno (1472), Josaphat Barbaro (1473) and Ambrosio
Contarini (1473), were at the Persian Court in order to bring about
united action on the part of Venice and Persia against the Turks.[12]
These embassies attracted considerable attention in Europe, as is shown
by numerous pamphlets concerning them, published in several European
countries.[13] In this same century Nicolo de Conti travelled in India
and the account of his wanderings has been recorded by Poggio.[14]

As we see, most of these travellers are Italians. We know of but one
German, before the year 1500, who went further than the Holy Land, and
that is Johann Schildberger of Munich, whose book of travel was printed
in 1473. Taken prisoner while fighting in Turkish service against Timur
at Angora, he remained in the East from 1395 to 1417, and got as far as
Persia. His description of that country is very meagre; India, as he
expressly states,[15] he never visited, his statements about that land
being mostly plagiarized from Mandeville.[16]

These accounts, however, while they give valuable information concerning
the physical geography, the wealth, size, and wonderful things of the
countries they describe, have little or nothing to say about the
languages or literatures. All that Conti for instance has to say on this
important subject is contained in a single sentence: "Loquendi idiomata
sunt apud Indos plurima, atque inter se varia."[17]

In these accounts it was not so much truthfulness that appealed to the
public, as strangeness and fancifulness. Thus Marco Polo's narrative,