Les voyageurs français dans l'Orient européen : conférences faites en Sorbonne…

"Les voyageurs français dans l'Orient européen" by Nicolae Iorga is a historical study written in the early 20th century. It examines how French travelers’ accounts from the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean reframed Western views of the Ottoman world, Byzantium’s legacy, and the peoples of Eastern Europe, tracing a shift from medieval piety to early humanist curiosity and offering a more nuanced picture of Ottoman power and society. The opening of the work argues that travelers often reveal truths missed by official chronicles, then surveys key 15th‑century witnesses—Gilles le Bouvier, Nompar de Caumont, the biographer of Boucicaut, Jean de Wavrin, Guilebert de Lannoy, and Bertrandon de la Broquière—highlighting their firsthand depictions of Turks, Tatars, Greeks, and Roumanians, and correcting clichés about a “barbarian” Ottoman conquest. These narratives show ordered Ottoman institutions, lively trade routes, Westerners embedded across Constantinople and the Balkans, and vivid episodes like Nicopolis and Danubian campaigns, alongside early humanist interests. At the start of the section on the 16th century, the book outlines the empire’s Byzantine‑inspired imperial transformation under Suleiman and contrasts Venetian diplomatic reports with French travelers’ more intimate observations, before introducing new eyewitnesses (such as La Borderie in verse, Philippe du Fresne Canaye, Jérôme Maurand, Jean Palerne, and others) who chronicle ceremonies, cities, hospitality, and daily life from Chio to Constantinople. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

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Author Iorga, Nicolae, 1871-1940
Title Les voyageurs français dans l'Orient européen : conférences faites en Sorbonne : extraites de la Revue des cours et conférences
Original Publication Paris: J. Gamber, 1928.
Credits Laurent Vogel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Biblioteca Centrală Universitară Carol I in Bucharest)
Language French
LoC Class G: Geography, Anthropology, Recreation
Subject Voyages and travels -- Congresses
Subject Middle East -- Description and travel -- Congresses
Category Text
EBook-No. 77907
Release Date
Copyright Status Public domain in the USA.
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