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• 1 2015-06-18T14:52:16-07:00 Itinerarius 20 image_header 2023-12-21T09:07:21-08:00

  Itinerarius (c. 1389-1424)
  
  Johannes Witte de Hese, whose fanciful “travels” recall those of the more famous John Mandeville, relates a tale of eastern travel more concerned with engaging and entertaining his audience than with the sober reporting of observations and/or historical fact.
  
  The purported author appears to be an invented persona, á la Mandeville; the only clue given about the author's true identity is the frequent reference to Cologne. This popular text circulated in manuscript form until it was first printed in 1489. At that point it became popularly bound with Prester John chapbooks. 
  
  As the Itinerarius's modern editor and translator Scott Westrem observes (p. xi), "the Itinerarius belongs to a group... of texts [that] share a covacbulary that includes common verbs of motion, concrete nouns, and superlative adjectives; a style that combines autobiographical details about travel with ethnographic, political, and mercantile observations; and a perspective that reflects authorial attempts to achieve some comprehension of what has been at times a literally alienating experience." 
  
  Given that he claims to have actually successfully traveled to the terrestrial paradise, Silverberg (p. 221) notes that in this respect, Johannes accomplishes the feat of "out-Mandevilling Mandeville." 
  
  In the Itinerarius Johannes names Edessa as the city that houses the infamous kingdom of Prester John.
  
  From Westrem’s English translation of Johannes Witte de Hese's Itinerarius:

  And sailing farther for fourteen days, one comes to the city of Edissa where Prester John lives. And this city is the capital of his entire realm, and it is located in Upper India at the end of the inhabited  earth. And this city is more than twenty-four times the size of the city of Cologne.
  
  And the residence of Prester John is located in the center of the city. And it is a good two German miles long and the same in width as well, for it is square. And it stands atop columns, of which there are said to be nine hundred. And the central column is larger than the others, and at this [column] four large giants have been made out of precious stones and gilded; they stand with bowed heads beneath the palace as if they were supporting the whole palace. And at certain other columns images have been made as well: at one the image of a king and at another the image of a queen, holding baubles and golden goblets in their hands. That is to say, when the image of the king has the babule in its hands, the image of the queen has the golden goblet in its hands taking a drink, and so back and forth. And these images are made of precious stones and gilded….
  
  [The account of Prester John’s kingdom goes on for another 220 lines]