The Travels and Journal of Ambrosio Bembo, translated from the Italian by Clara Bargellini; edited and annotated, with an introduction by Anthony Welch; with the original illustrations by G.J. Grelot; and maps. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007, 452 pp. $24.95 (paper)

In the summer of 1671 young Ambrosio Bembo decided to leave his hometown, Venice. At 19 he was too young to take up any position and he did not want to hang around doing nothing until he had reached 25, the day he could enter public service. So he decided to spend the interim traveling.

Not only did he have a relative in Aleppo, northern Syria, but he had already been inspired by the writings of other Italian travelers — those of Marco Polo and the later Pietro de la Valle. Also, he wanted to keep a traveler's journal himself, though he later said that his youth and inexperience did not permit him make a very good job of it. "Nevertheless, this diary will be the truthful account of the voyage."

He kept his eyes open and noted many details a grander traveler might have missed. In Muslim mosques he marveled that no one ever stole anyone else's shoes. Someplace else, people were often sold as slaves even after they had been baptized. Elsewhere, one of the warlords would throw the prisoners into a pond then have the trumpets sounded to call the local alligators.

Many a paragraph in his journal begins with "having satisfied my curiosity." This teenager was indeed very curious. He looked into the curious custom of suttee, and the equally curious habits of the Inquisition. He also gazed at the curious local European expatriates who "would not receive in their own countries half the esteem they get here."

Peering about, asking endless questions, keeping copious notes, young Bembo left Aleppo and made his way to India, ending up in Goa for a time. This was a very long and trying journey but through it he kept not only his personal prejudices but also his native humor.

An acquaintance had a Chinese servant who "like all the people of that kingdom, had a rather funny face." He notices that an Indian he sees wears a "little idol" around his neck. "I will speak of other foolish customs at a proper time." Yet, he himself is noticeably pious, quotes scripture, and for all I know wore a crucifix.

At the same time he noted many a humorous incongruity. He sees a Persian doctor in the bazaar who "makes a prescription that often serves the sick person as a passport to the next world." When in Baghdad he was unexpectedly given a proper bed, he writes: "I did not want to use the sheets so as not lose the habit of difficulty and suffering all at once."

Despite such signs of character, however, we do not get to know Bembo through his journal, at least not to the extent that we become familiar with Marco Polo. One reason is the very conscientiousness of the boy. It is as though he is making an inventory of his travels. We are shown what he saw but are only rarely told how he felt about it. There is almost no evaluation in the book, and very little speculation. It reads like a travel guide, valuable only for the information contained, though to have a 17th century view from our position in the 21st century is, to be sure, quite valuable.

And we almost didn't have it. The manuscript of Bembo's travel guide remained unpublished and unknown until 1964 when the University of Minnesota acquired it for the James Ford Bell Library.

There it would have remained had not one of the G.J. Grelot illustrations attracted attention. This led to further scholarly interest and, eventually, this complete translation.

So, in April 1675, Bembo finally, "to my unspeakable relief," saw again his hometown of Venice. He had been gone nearly four years. He was now ready to begin a life of civil service, and he also had the experience and the memories of what he had seen. And he had his travel book to compile from all the notes he had taken on the journey.

He did a careful job, nothing seems left out, one city follows another in an orderly fashion. Occasionally he is moved by the beauty of Isfahan, by the fascination of old Baghdad, or by the first sight of an elephant, the first taste of a mango, but usually the style of that of an observant schoolboy. And at the end, as you are supposed to, he makes an accounting of all the money that he spent on his travels.