"Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna has left us an account of India and Burma from the very first decade of the sixteenth century, prior to the largescale of the First Taung-ngu Dynasty that would follow in the decades ahead. It thus provides a valuable insight into a period for which many foreign sources are not available. The original account, in Italian, was published at Rome on the 6th of December 1510 at the request of Lodovico de Henricis da Corneto of Vicenza by Stephano Guillireti de Loreno and Hercule de Nani, both of Bologna. The translation followed here was made by John Winter Jones in 1863, edited by G. P. Badger, and published under the title of “The Itinerary of Ludovico di Varthema of Bologna from 1502 to 1508,” the same title we use in the text below. Only material relevant to Burma has been included in the following text. Additional editorial changes include additional paragraph breaks and the addition of subject headers for clarification." Edited for the SOAS Bulletin of Burma Research by Michael W. Charney