Four days before they reached Stegeborg, they came to a town called Wadstena, in which St Bridget was born, and where she had founded a nunnery, together with chaplains of the same order.  At this place the northern kings and princes have built a most magnificent church covered with copper, in which they counted sixty-two altars.  The nuns and chaplains received the strangers with great kindness; and, after resting two days, they set out to wait on the chevalier Giovanne Franco, who relieved them in a manner that did honour to his generosity, and did every thing in his power to comfort them in their distressed situation.  A fortnight after their arrival at his residence, a plenary indulgence was given at the church of St Bridget, in Wadstena, to which people from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, and even from Germany, Holland, and Scotland, came to partake; some of whom came from a distance of more than 600 miles.  They went to the indulgence at Wadstena along with Giovanne Franco, in order to inquire if there were any ships bound for Germany or England, there being always a great concourse of people on such occasions.  The chevalier was five days on the road, and had more than 100 horses in his train.  At Wadstena they took leave of their beneficent countryman, who furnished them amply with money and clothes for their journey, and ordered his son Matthew, a very amiable young man, to accompany them eight days journey on their way to Lodese, on the river Gotha; and where he lodged them in his own house for some time, till the ship in which they were to embark was ready to sail The chevalier Franco lent them his own horses all the way from his castle of Stegeborg; and, as Quirini was ill of a fever, he mounted him on a horse which had a wonderfully easy pace.

From Lodese, three of Quirini’s crew went home in a vessel bound for Rostock, and eight of them accompanied him to England, where they came to their friends in London, by way of Ely and Cambridge.  After residing two months at London, they took shipping thence for Germany; and, travelling thence by way of Basil, in Switzerland, they arrived, after a journey of twenty-four days, in safety and good health at Venice.

[1] The Rein-deer, Cervus tarandus, Lin.—­Forst.

[2] Probably the Tetrao lagopus, Lin.—­Forst.

[3] Falco Gyrfalcus, and Falco astur.—­Forst.

CHAP.  XIX.

Travels of Josaphat Barbaro, Ambassador from Venice to Tanna, now called Asof, in 1436[1].

INTRODUCTION.

Josaphat Barbaro, a Venetian, was sent, in the year 1436, by the republic of Venice, as ambassador to Tanna, now called Asof, which at that time was in the hands of the Genoese.  This relation was printed in a small and scarce collection at the Aldus press in Venice, by Antonio Minutio in 1543, and was afterwards inserted in the collection of Giovanne Baptista Ramusio.  The following is an abstract of that journey.  He went afterwards into Persia in 1471, as ambassador to Ussum Hassan, or Assambei, a Turkomanian prince of the white weather tribe, and was sixteen years among the Tartars; and on his return to his native country wrote an account of both these expeditions.  He died at Venice at a very advanced age, in 1494.