Chapter 9 focuses in on the 100 plus illustrations in Olearius’s 1656 edition. It explores visual precedents for illustrated books (including illustrated Bibles and psalters) in his time, but finds none so copiously illustrated, with illustrations carefully keyed to the text. The chapter analyzes how Olearius curated his illustrations, packing them with scenes, costumes and architecture as mentioned in the adjacent text. Olearius strove for eyewitness representation, and yet elements of trope and borrowed images inevitably crept in to such a large engraving project. The chapter undertakes a careful analysis of the sources of his image of the embassy’s audience with Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, linking his imagery with borrowed templates from the famous de Bry family of engravers. The chapter concludes by exploring how the illustrations complement Olearius’s textual argument about the European, Russian and Persian civilizations.

Chapter 8 introduces Adam Olearius, resident scholar at the court of Schleswig-Holstein in the first half of the seventeenth century. His account of travels through Russia to Persia, published first in 1647 and revised and enlarged for an edition of 1656, supplanted Herberstein and continued to be the most influential resource on Russia for a century. This chapter explores how Olearius designed his copiously illustrated book and how he conducted his research, personally visiting sites, collecting material objects and interviewing anyone and everyone in the many languages he mastered. It concludes by analyzing his lengthy travel account as a “Baroque novel” and a morality tale.