Ludovico di Varthema (ca. 1470-ca. 1517) was an Italian traveler and adventurer. Current opinion holds that he did, indeed, visit all the places in the East he claimed, including some in which he was the first European.

Nearly everything that is known of the life of Ludovico di Varthema comes from his own account. Evidently a native of Bologna and a soldier, he left a wife and child in 1502, when, slightly over the age of 30, he left to visit the East. Curiosity alone impelled him; he did not seek to make money. He traveled first to Egypt, proceeding as far as Cairo, then visited Syrian Aleppo and Damascus, by which time he had mastered enough Arabic to pass as a Moslem. He joined a pilgrimage to Mecca as a Mamluk, or military protector, and thus became one of the first (if not the first) Christians to behold the holy...