The story could be from Disney: in 1653, 14-year-old Venetian Nicolò Manucci, suffering from youthful wanderlust, stows away on a ship. Befriended (and hired) by an English nobleman (Henry Bard, Viscount of Bellomont) en route to Persia to solicit assistance from the Shah for exiled Charles II, he travels through the Ottoman Empire to Esfahan. After a year, once it becomes apparent that no such assistance would be forthcoming, the pair depart for Surat with the intention of continuing on to Delhi, during the last leg of which Lord Bellomont inconveniently expires. Manucci, now 18, but still a teenager, is left alone in the Mughal Empire.
And that’s just the first dozen or so pages of A Venetian at the Mughal Court, a captivating historical biography by Italian scholar Marco Moneta, a life drawn mostly from Manucci’s own Storia do Mogor, his magnum opus composed several decades later.

Two Englishmen tried to go off with his stuff:
On the road they showed me not the least little sign of civility, such as Europeans, even of different nations, are accustomed to display in all parts of Asia when they come across each other. Many a time did I entreat them for God’s sake to make over to me what was mine; but as they saw I was only a youth, they scoffed at me, and said: ‘Shut your mouth; if you say a word, we will take your horse and your arms away.’
Manucci was apparently a quick study. While in Esfahan, he learned both the language and court protocol. He also, it seems, had guts. Once in Delhi, Manucci complained directly to Shah Jahan’s secretary Wazir Khan. So impressed was Wazir Khan that he had the boy presented to the King; he ended up in the entourage and—lack of military training notwithstanding—the army of Prince Dara Shukoh.
Manucci continued to fall on his feet. When Dara Shukoh lost the succession battle to his brother Aurangzeb, he declined to enter the victor’s service and was left to his own devices, the most profitable of which was medicine. Manucci had of course no medical knowledge or experience but was able to fake it—with great success. A quick and analytical mind and a willingness to to take risks were combined with evident charisma. He seems to have about as a good a doctor as anyone else was at the time.
His adventures, for such they were, took him from one end of the Empire to the other, from Lahore to Bengal to the Deccan. Manucci, fending off offers of marriage, had long wished to return to life “among Europeans”, but an unpleasant sojourn at Goa (“dominated by some disquieting planet, or by demons who throw it into confusion, filling it with murder, disunion, and oppression”) did not endear the Portuguese to him , and he finally settled in Madras and Pondicherry where his diplomatic and medical skills soon made him invaluable.
Manucci spoke Turkish, Persian, Urdu, French, Portuguese and of course Italian. He also seems to have had very sensitive cultural antennae and could be scathing about fellow Europeans who lacked them. Moneta further attributes Manucci’s success to his being “Italian”. Neither Italy (which of course did not then exist) nor Venice had a formal presence in India: there was no East India Company, Estado da Índia, Compagnie Française des Indes orientales or Dutch East Company to claim his national allegiance. Being a free agent gave him both clarity and flexibility.
Manucci emerges as a fully-formed character with considerable personality.
One quickly develops a sense of having seen this movie before: Marco Polo was also Venetian. But the title also seems a reference to Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, perhaps in the incongruity, to say nothing of the improbability, of it all.
Not only was Manucci at the center of both the action, both as player and observer, for several decades, he also had a good eye for detail and a keen memory. Moneta quotes many passages from Storia do Mogor, some of considerable length; Manucci emerges as a fully-formed character with considerable personality as do, indeed, several of the people he writes about. Although Manucci remains partial to Christianity and Europe—in theory if not always in practice—he is, more than one has a right to expect, a balanced and impartial, if opinionated, observer.
As a result, A Venetian at the Mughal Court is far more than the story of a remarkable character, filled with the sights, sounds and personalities of Mughal India. It also serves as an outline history of a critical half-century of the Empire during which it achieved its largest extent but also when the elements that would lead to its decline started to manifest themselves; in his final chapter in Mughal service, Manucci, back in the army:
followed Shah Alam again to the Deccan as he sought to crush the persistent Maratha rebellion led by Shivaji’s son Sambhaji, and also lay his hands on the powerful and magnificent sultanates of Bijapur and Golconda.
Manucci’s story is one that will likely strike a chord with many a lifelong Western expat in Asia.
Moneta has written a fine book, and has been very well-served by his translator Elisabetta Gnecchi Ruscone, who has managed not just a fluent translation, but one which maintains the distinct voices of the author and his subject.
Manucci’s story is one that will likely strike a chord with many a lifelong Western expat in Asia. Once in Madras, he realized that
having become accustomed to the climate and the food of India, and being already advanced in age, I should not last very long in Europe.
Instead, he was advised to marry and was introduced to:
a lady born in India, but of good English Catholic parents. She lived in Madras, and her name was Senhora Elizabeth Hartley, legitimate daughter of Mr. Christopher Hartley, president of Machhlipatanan, and of Donna Aguida Pereira, a Portuguese lady.
The marriage was a happy one. Manucci had by this time resettled in Madras, where he concocted medical potions, engaged in diplomatic missions and, as many expats do, set about writing a book. Manucci’s, however, was better than most.
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