Niccolao Manucci (19 April 1638 – 1717) was a Venetian writer, a self-taught physician, and traveller, who wrote accounts of the

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

supposedly first-hand but with many details now considered doubtful. He also documented folk beliefs and customs of the period.

Biography

Niccolò Manucci was born in Venice to Pasqualino Manucci and Rosa née Bellin. He joined an uncle in Corfu as a teenager and went aboard an English ship to India. In Delhi he lived with Jesuit priests learning Persian and some medical knowledge. He sent a ring back home with instructions that it should be sold for books on medicine to be sent back to him. After several dubious attempts as a medical practitioner with lucky cures effected for some influential patients he seems to have managed to work as a physician in the court of the Mughals. In 1653, he was recruited as a servant and guide by

Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont Henry Bard, 1st Viscount Bellomont (1616 – June 20, 1656) was a Royalist soldier and diplomat who served in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, then as envoy from Charles II of England to Safavid Iran and the Mughal Empire, where he died in 1656 ...

, envoy from

Charles II of England Charles II (29 May 1630 – 6 February 1685) was King of Scotland from 1649 until 1651, and King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration of the monarchy until his death in 1685. Charles II was the eldest surviving child of ...

Abbas II of Persia Abbas II (; born Soltan Mohammad Mirza; 30 August 1632 – 26 October 1666) was the seventh Shah of Safavid Iran, ruling from 1642 to 1666. As the eldest son of Safi and his Circassian wife, Anna Khanum, he inherited the throne when he was ...

and

Shah Jahan Shihab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), better known by his regnal name Shah Jahan I (; ), was the fifth emperor of the Mughal Empire, reigning from January 1628 until July 1658. Under his emperorship, the Mugha ...

After Bard died at

Hodal Hodal is a city and a municipal council in Palwal district in the Haryana state of India. It is located at and has an average elevation of . Hodal is a Haryana Legislative Assembly constituency segment, within the Faridabad Lok Sabha cons ...

on 20 June 1656, Manucci moved to Surat and around 1656 he became an artillery man for Dara Shikoh. Following the death of Dara Shikoh he moved to Patna and later worked with Mirza Raja Jai Singh and in 1666 he tried to find work in Portuguese Bassein and Goa. He then returned to Mughal service in Lahore as a physician. He lost material in a shipwreck and then worked as a physician for Shah Alam in the Deccan. In 1682 he tried to act as an intermediary between the Portuguese and the Mughals and was made a member of the Order of Santiago by the Portuguese Viceroy Dom Francisco de Távora, Conde de Alvor but this ends in 1686 when he lost Mughal trust. He then moved to Hyderabad and then to Madras, marrying Elizabeth Hartley Clarke, widow of Portuguese interpreter Thomas Clarke. He lived in Madras with some work at Pondicherry where he obtained a house on the Rue Neuve de la Porte de Goudelour (Cuddalore). He maintained good relations with William Gyfford and Thomas Pitt. Manucci remained in India for much of his life and is one of the few supposedly first hand European sources for Shah Jahan,

Aurangzeb Muhi al-Din Muhammad (; – 3 March 1707), commonly known as ( fa, , lit=Ornament of the Throne) and by his regnal title Alamgir ( fa, , translit=ʿĀlamgīr, lit=Conqueror of the World), was the sixth emperor of the Mughal Empire, ruling ...

Shivaji Shivaji Bhonsale I (; 19 February 1630 – 3 April 1680), also referred to as Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was an Indian ruler and a member of the Bhonsle Maratha clan. Shivaji carved out his own independent kingdom from the declining Adils ...

Dara Shikoh Dara Shikoh ( fa, ), also known as Dara Shukoh, (20 March 1615 – 30 August 1659) was the eldest son and heir-apparent of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. Dara was designated with the title ''Padshahzada-i-Buzurg Martaba'' ("Prince of High Rank" ...

Shah Alam I Bahadur Shah I (14 October 1643 – 27 February 1712), also known as Muhammad Mu'azzam and Shah Alam I. was the eighth Mughal Emperor who ruled from 1707 until his death in 1712. In his youth, he conspired to overthrow his father Aurangzeb, ...

Jai Singh I Jai Singh I (15 July 1611 – 28 August 1667) was a senior general ("Mirza Raja") of the Mughal Empire and the Raja of the Kingdom of Amber (later called Jaipur). His predecessor was his grand uncle, Raja Bhau Singh. Accession and early ca ...

and Kirat Singh. He had miniature paintings made of several of the Mughal rulers for his book.

''Storia do Mogor''

Manucci is famous for his work "Storia do Mogor", an account of Mughal history and life. Manucci had first-hand knowledge of the Mughal court, and the book is considered to be the most detailed account of the Mughal

court A court is any person or institution, often as a government institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance ...

. It is an important account of the time of the later reign of

and of the reign of

. He also documented folk beliefs including witchcraft. He wrote about his work: "I must add, that I have not relied on the knowledge of others; and I have spoken nothing which I have not seen or undergone..." . Manucci spent almost his entire life in India. He would then send home the manuscript for "Storia do Mogor" which was lent to the French historian François Catrou in 1707. To Manucci's displeasure Catrou published his own embellished version as ''Histoire générale de l’empire du Mogul'' in 1715. The original then emerged in Berlin in 1915 and was written in three different languages. This version was translated and then published.

Works

Some of Manucci's works, reprints, and translations include: * * * * * *

References

Sources

External links