Bengt Bengtsson Oxenstierna

As was customary in the Oxenstierna family, he was educated abroad and spent the years 1607–1613 travelling the European continent, studying at the German universities of Rostock, Jena and Wittenberg and visiting Poland and Italy.

He visited Palestine in 1613 but was robbed and returned impoverished to Italy, where he entered the service of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, Cosimo II de' Medici.

In 1616 he travelled to the Middle East again, through Asia Minor to Aleppo, Baghdad and Isfahan, making him the first Swede known to have visited Safavid Persia.

During the 1620s, he followed King Gustavus Adolphus in the field, served under his cousin Governor-General Axel Oxenstierna in the Swedish administration in Prussia, e.g. as Governor of Elbląg in 1626, or was sent on diplomatic missions.

According to contemporary sources, Oxenstierna was able to talk, read and write in Swedish, Latin, French, German, Italian and Spanish and also spoke some Persian and Turkish.