Cornelis de Bruijn

During his first tour, he visited Rome, where he became a member of the Bentvueghels with the nickname Adonis, which is how he signed the bentbrief of Abraham Genoels II.

In late April 1703, De Bruijn left Moscow along with the party of an Armenian merchants from Isfahan whose name he recorded as Jacob Daviedof.

Thanks to de Bruijn's short stopover in Nizhny Novgorod during the Easter holidays, we now have his description of that major center of the Russian Volga trade as it existed in 1703, with its Kremlin, stone churches, and a lively bar (kabak) scene.

[3] Leaving the borders of the Russian state, de Bruijn arrived to Persia, where he made drawings of towns like Isfahan and Persepolis (1704–1705).

The mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Witsen and a member of the Royal Society probably asked him to draw the city famous for its 40 columns.

De Bruijn, who had read every Greek and Latin source he had been able to obtain, displays a convincing knowledge of subjects, at times going into the humorous.