Information and Propaganda. A Brief Relations on Shah Abbas’ Victories

In 1605, a report sent to Europe from the Caucasus a few months earlier and written by Robert Sherley, an English gentleman in the service of the Shāh of Persia, was printed in Bologna. In the text the English adventurer described the outbreak of war between the Ottomans and Persians and the great victories gained by Shāh ‛Abbās I the Great. The document was published by the official papal printer of Bologna. This short publication was probably part of a wider propaganda programme devised by the Pope and some Catholic states, particularly those which were involved in the war against the Ottoman Empire and interested in an alliance with Persia. The aim of the present article is to recover this ‘forgotten’ document, to publish its transcription, and to place it in the political and cultural context of the Catholic world in the early 17th century.