Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 2, 1851).djvu/171

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NOTES UPON RUSSIA.
143

My Journeys into Russia.

In the year 1515 there came to Vienna, to the Emperor Maxmiilian, Vladislaus and his son Louis, kings of Hungary and Bohemia, and Sigismund, king of Poland; and after marriages had been contracted and solemnized in that city, between various members of their families, and a mutual friendship established between them, the emperor, among other things, made a promise that he would send ambassadors to Vasiley, Grand Duke of Russia, who had brought about the peace between himself and the King of Poland. The persons appointed by the emperor to undertake the embassy, were Christopher, Bishop of Laybach, and Peter Mraxi; but as the bishop delayed the undertaking, although John Dantiscus, afterwards Bishop of Helsperg,[1] who was King Sigismund's secretary, growing impatient of the loss of time, continually urged him to start, the task of undertaking this embassy was allotted to me shortly after my return from Dantzig.

Immediately on my receiving the emperor's commands, at Hagenau, a town of Alsace, I departed; and first crossing the Rhine, passed through the territory of the marquises of Baden, touching at the towns of Rastadt, Erlingen, Pfortzach, and so into the duchy of Wirtemburg, I then came to the imperial city of Erlingen, situated on the Neckar, and thence to Gopingen and Geislingen.

Afterwards, crossing the Danube at Ulm, I passed through Gunsburg and the town of Purgow, from which the marquisate of Burgow takes its name, and so reached Augsburg,

  1. ↑ Johann Flachsbinder, named Dantiscus, from Dantzig, his birthplace, editor of the Soteria, a collection of panegyrics on Herberstein, of several of which he was also the author.
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