Little is known of this traveller from Reims, who set out for Italy from Lyon on “Wednesday the second day of January one thousand six hundred forty‑seven” and returned to that same city on Monday, 9 September. The Cocquebert (or Coquebert) settled in Reims during the fifteenth century; a street bears their name, and their arms are still found in several stained‑glass windows and on numerous epitaphs. They were linked by nine alliances to the De La Salle family of the celebrated canon Jean‑Baptiste De La Salle, founder of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. The author of the manuscript named “Jean Cocquebert de Roquelaure” on the first leaf was born in 1629 and died in 1682 according to the genealogy of the De La Salle and Cocquebert families established by Brother Léon de Marie Aroz and later augmented by John Alexander Salazar Serrano (Traducción del francés al español…, doctoral thesis, Universidad de La Salle, Bogotá, 2005).

The narrator, who does not specify his own occupation, states that he undertook his voyage with a a Picard apothecary named Cordier. “Inseparable” from each other according to Cocquebert, they part only upon their return to France, at Montpellier, where Cordier finds employment. He is the only travelling companion whose name is known. Traces of his trade appear in the numerous allusions to apothecaries-particularly at the Roman monastery of San Francesco di Paola-in the hospitals visited during the journey, and in remarks about medical practice (“the doctors in Italy do not prescribe in Latin as in France but in their vulgar Italian tongue, which I found rather ridiculous, since it is not our custom to prescribe in French,” fol. 79).

The travel account is marked by the general candour of its descriptions: the author does not claim to produce a scholarly travel account, but rather offers his impressions, commenting on the demeanour and appearance of the inhabitants, the topography, and the curiosities of each locality. It is not known whether the work was intended for publication-the author repeatedly addresses the reader, to caution him or to apologise for lengthy digressions. He never fails to record his experiences in each tavern and sketches portraits of the many travellers he meets. This is not the journey of an aristocrat or an erudite scholar, but that of a reasonably well‑to‑do bourgeois who nevertheless keeps an eye on his finances. Cocquebert says as much in several passages, notably after being dazzled by the grandeur of Venice: “We did not stay long in this city for fear of leaving the rest of our money there. We therefore hastened to see its rarities as quickly as possible, aided by some French compatriots and good friends whom we had the good fortune to meet” (fol. 131 verso). As to his literary references, the manuscript reveals that Cocquebert knew his classics. A lover of Horace and Virgil, he repeatedly cites passages from the Odes and the Aeneid during a terrible storm that he narrowly survives between Marseille and Genoa. He closes his manuscript with a wise maxim on the hazards of travel: “‘Tis for the wise, / Each difficult event / Forseeing to prevent, / E’er it arise: / When come, the manly brast / Adjusts it for the best. / The prudent mond averts the coming ill ; / When come, brave hearts to good may turn it still.” (fol. 213 verso), taken from "Medea", a tragedy composed a century earlier by Pléiade writer Jean Bastier de La Péruse.

The story unfolds on the eve of the Fronde, as France sought to curb Habsburg influence in Italy and mounted multiple offensives. In 1647 the revolt of Masaniello broke out in Naples, which France tried to exploit against Spain by dispatching troops-met by Cocquebert on the road at Lunel: “we encountered officers who inquired about our journey; they were ordered to go towards Naples concerning the revolt that had taken place around Easter, when we were still in Rome” (fol. 190 verso). In Catalonia, the rebellion against Madrid (supported by France since 1640) was flagging, and our traveller abandoned his plan to go to Toulouse for fear of crossing paths with defeated French troops returning from the siege of Lérida.

In Venice preparations were under way to confront the Ottomans in Crete. Cocquebert came away impressed by his visit to the immense Arsenal and drank wine with the workmen. He even decided to quit the city “so as not to depart for Candia [Crete], as did other Frenchmen in our company who had embarked at the persuasion of certain French officers who, according to their wont, had promised them marvels” (fol. 145). So as not to alienate the Venetians or quarrel with the Turks, Cardinal Mazarin had indeed authorised French soldiers and sailors to join Venetian troops as volonteers. Cocquebert’s comments among many throughout the narrative make no secret of his low esteem for the men of war he so often encounters. Of the constables and sergeants on the road to Venice he writes: “people like them better from afar than up close. Our passports had to be renewed-in a word, it was money they asked of us” (fol. 127 verso). Despite this, Cocquebert surprises us and exchanges the garb of the pilgrim‑traveller for that of a soldier: persuaded by French officers, he claims to have joined for several months a regiment under the command of the Duke of Modena, Francesco I d’Este. He witnesses the grand ceremonies of the marriage of the duke’s sister, Margherita d’Este, to Ferdinando III, Duke of Guastalla, which he describes in detail. But the soldier’s life pleases him little, irked by the want of provisions and the idleness of his guards around Modena, at San Martino and Vignola: “it seemed to them that, to cure our boredom, it sufficed to make us change only our garrison, which did not greatly please those who loved to sleep under the sign of the moon. They did not consent to tread the pavement every day for no gain; they desired nothing so much as to make their fortune or to have their heads broken,” he writes (fol. 161 verso). After three months of service, he takes his discharge and resumes his travels back towards France.

Bearing arms throughout his travels, he was forced to break the tip of his sword upon arriving at Genoa, and recounts that, upon his visit to the Grande Chartreuse, he entrusted his firearms to a monk at the monastery gate. He never used them, but had bravely prepared for an assault at sea, of which he gives an astonishing account: “As there was talk of pirates or sea‑rovers who had taken some fishermen quite near Marseille, we sighted a vessel that was rather fine, at least larger than our own […] The captain had us all come up from below to appear at the stern […] No one seemed indisposed any longer; one would hardly believe how fear silenced complaints and gave strength even to the sickest to take up muskets, the halberd, the pitchfork, or the iron‑shod staff and other arms that we had in good number, without reckoning the artillery, which was very good. There we all were, then, resolved to fight […] By his pennon we recognised that he was a foreigner. He requested passage in the frankest terms, which was granted him with as much civility as we would have asked of him. He was obliged to sheer off and keep away from our ship. Thus the encounter proved in no way rough for us.” (fols. 21 verso–23).

Cocquebert visits more than a hundred towns and sets himself the task of describing their “curiosities,” monuments, and renowned places of worship. Having lived in Lyon for two years before his journey, he attends the laying of the first stone of the Hôtel de Ville by the lieutenant‑general of the Lyonnais, Camille de Neufville de Villeroy, on 5 September 1646. He also recounts the legend of the creation of the famous astronomical clock of Lyon Cathedral. On the road to Marseille he visits the church of Saint‑Maurice in Vienne, the church of Sainte‑Apolline and the citadel of Valence, the Roman triumphal arches and the fortress of Orange, the cathedral of Notre‑Dame‑des‑Doms and the Hôtel du Vieux Légat in Avignon. Before embarking for Genoa, he visits the old Major church in Marseille, the abbey of Saint‑Victor, the hospital founded by the bishop of Marseille Jean‑Baptiste Gault, as well as the Îles Pomègues, where he lingered for a few days. On his return from Italy, he climbs to the chapel of the Saint‑Pilon, the grotto of Sainte‑Marie‑Madeleine, and the Jacobins’ convent at Saint‑Maximin. He also describes the Palais Comtal in Aix, and the church of the Fathers of the Oratory (then under construction), and notes having viewed curiosities near the cathedral of Saint‑Sauveur (probably at the Hôtel Borrilli). In Montpellier he visits the Cathedral of Saint‑Peter and the Royal Garden of the Physicians. Among Roman ruins on the return journey are the Arènes of Nîmes, the Tour Magne, the Maison Carrée, and the Pont du Gard. He lingers as well over the monuments of Grenoble, notably the Porte de France, the bridge over the Isère with its chapel, the Cathedral of Notre‑Dame, the church of Saint‑André, the Jacobins’ college, and the Jesuits’ church, which at that time was built out of wood. Cocquebert prays at the Calvary of the Récollets at Romans and at the Sanctuary of Notre‑Dame‑de‑Grâce at Rochefort‑du‑Gard. His account of the Grande Chartreuse (his last pilgrimage before returning to Lyon) is the most detailed of all.

Once in Italy, he notes in particular his visit to the cathedral and the “leaning tower” of Pisa (fol. 38 verso), to the Medici Palace in the opulent Florence of Ferdinando II. He marvels at the celebrated menagerie of exotic animals near the Palazzo Vecchio, on today’s Via de’ Leoni, housing bears, lions, wolves, and leopards: “at times they set these animals to fighting, letting them out of their enclosures one after another, for the Grand Duke’s amusement only” (fol. 45 verso). The Medici stables, he says, are filled with “inestimable horses, more beautiful than any painter could render by his art” (fol. 46). After witnessing the construction of the Hôtel de Ville in Lyon, it is in Florence that he is dazzled by the hard‑stone mosaics of the immensely rich Chapel of the Princes, still under construction: “One never tires of seeing the other three in painted designs on paper or boards set in the same place before the work, in the very manner they must one day be when finished” (fol. 47). Still in Florence, he attends the carnival and a palio, a horse race run through the city streets, which he recounts in detail. That race, a century later, would be recorded in the “Florence” article of Diderot's Encyclopédie.

In Rome he lodges near Trinità dei Monti and the famed “palace of Cardinal Antonio [Barberini], which is exceedingly fine, where Monsieur the Duke of Guise was lodging at the time” (fol. 64). Henri II de Guise was then seeking to annull his marriage to Honorine de Glimes Glimberghe, Countess of Bossu. Supported by Cardinal Grimaldi and by the ambassador François du Val, Marquis de Fontenay‑Mareuil, he indeed sojourned at the Palazzo Barberini in 1647, during Cocquebert’s visit. The latter relates having seen him in person at Easter Mass in the Sistine Chapel, a celebration he describes over several pages.
True to his Rémois origins, Cocquebert deems the Roman churches “far richer than all those to be seen in France, although they cannot in any wise be compared with the portal of Notre‑Dame de Reims and the fashion of our buildings, fairer than theirs, which are not so well made as ours nor so delicately” (fols. 64–64 verso). He mentions having visited the papal residence and admired Raphael’s frescoes there, as well as the famed antique statues in the Vatican, notably the Laocoön and the celebrated Belvedere Torso. He returns drenched from the water‑tricks of the Baroque fountains of the Quirinal and from the spectacular water theatre with hydraulic organs at the Villa Aldobrandini in Frascati. After the Englishman Richard Lassels, Cocquebert is also among the first to describe a calcified mummy in the Ludovisi cabinet of curiosities. This strange fossilised body would be engraved and described for the first time in Athanasius Kircher’s famous "Mundus Subterraneus", before disappearing at the end of the eighteenth century.

His visit to Rome at Easter gives him access to a great many relics, in addition to the holy places where he makes pilgrimage: Saint Catherine of Siena, the sanctuary of Montenero at Livorno, the tomb of Saint Christina at Bolsena, Saint Rose of Viterbo, Saint Francis of Assisi, Our Lady of Loreto. He also visits the relics of the Blessed Catherine of Bologna, who would not be canonised until 1712 by Clement XI. More surprisingly, Cocquebert says he attended a Palm Sunday Mass celebrated according to the Greek‑Catholic rite in the church of “Saint Anastase” [in fact Athanasius] in Rome.

His journey is distinguished by a multitude of encounters-churchmen, mystics and other illuminati, prostitutes, innkeepers, fellow travellers, jugglers, deformed circus performers, thieves, and patterers. Popular life in southern France and Italy unfolds through the more or less happy experiences of our traveller, himself the butt of Italian pranks: “We saw a pastime of these gentlemen of Genoa that would not please everyone. They do this as a rule on balconies that project over the streets […] and as soon as any foreigners are recognised-for I believe they pick on us Frenchmen more readily than others-they throw at us without ceremony, but adroitly, eggs filled with water; so I saw and received, without taking offence. Yet there are others as foolish, and to my mind more insufferable, who, seeing us French pass by, amuse themselves by crying ouin, ouin, ouin, bawling as if possessed by the devil […] wishing, I think, to mock our common word oui, in use throughout France.” (fol. 30).

His travel account teems with observations concerning the Jews, invariably mentioned at many stages of his journey. Cocquebert notes their imposed signs of discrimination: the yellow hat for the Jews of Avignon, and red in Venice, where “the whole felt is dyed and not merely covered with taffeta, as is the custom in many places” (fol. 138), or a “little orange ribbon instead of a cord which they place upon their black hats” in Modena (fol. 157). He even attends a service in the synagogue at Senigallia in the Ancona region, an occasion for deploying anti‑Jewish rhetoric typical of the age. He also describes the Jewish ghetto in Rome and, more generally, the phenomenon of segregation in the cities he visits, which he interprets as a measure to protect the Jews from violence: “The Jews in Rome are as safe as in Avignon in France, and have their own quarters near the Ponte dei Quattro Capi, where they are shut in during Holy Week. The place is very large, although they are very cramped there. I believe its circuit is not small […] they have everything necessary within this enclosure, no more and no less than in a good town; they have their synagogues there” (fols. 79–79 bis). In Venice, he says he even saw Moors and Ethiopians.

His judgment is harsher toward the Reformation, whose influence he observes on his return route, notably via Montpellier. He frequently underscores acts of vandalism and provocations by the Reformed, and recounts an incredible anecdote 

“an enemy of our religion [...] went to piss in the holy‑water stoup of the church of Notre‑Dame in the sight of several citizens and inhabitants of said Grenoble; they, indignant at this injurious affront to all nature, had him at once taken by the local justice who, apprised of the affair and very well informed of the facts, condemned him to no other penalty than to carry out certain repairs needed in that church, which was entirely whitewashed afresh at his own expense-something I myself saw” (fols. 207 verso–208).

He deplores the defaced statues on the tympanum of the church in Romans, where “one sees certain saints who bear the marks of the impiety and rage of the Calvinists, who have cut off most of their noses and disfigured the faces elsewhere” (fol. 204); the traces of destruction at the Cathedral of Saint‑Peter in Montpellier; and he describes Lunel as a “place quite ruined, which still bears the marks of war and other grievous accidents, as we could judge, just as in many places of our Champagne” (fol. 195). Around Nîmes he also witnesses “desert” assemblies-open‑air services-held by Protestants driven out of the towns.

Cocquebert devotes some vivid pages to atypical Catholics. In Rome, the sight of a hooded white penitent (a so‑called Bianchi) prompts a long aside on the strange conduct of this figure during an expiatory procession: “who went through the streets barefoot, continually scourging his back with both hands with a horsehair whip. He seemed wholly stained with his own blood, with many little knots, especially at the extremities. Only that part was uncovered, from which the blood dripped, drop by drop […] I do not disapprove, there being others who may do and take this discipline as penance. But the veil is not always more on one than on the other” (fols. 66 verso–67 verso). Though he has little sympathy for such devotions, our traveller refrains from saying more, for the thunderbolts of the Inquisition are never far: “I dread too much the approaches of the Inquisition. I am in a country where there is no jesting.” He skirts heresy when he attends the Mass of a monk whose ecstasies were to say the least dubious: “I would have quitted that office, so as not to give occasion to be put to the Inquisition, for none of that pleased me much” (fol. 128).

Despite the dangers of the Inquisition, Cocquebert does not remain silent about prostitution and gives detailed descriptions-at Livorno the prostitutes are registered and examined, set aside when too ‘spoilt’; while in Rome “the courtesans, that is to say the harlots, are in great number, licensed in order to avoid a greater evil that would nonetheless be committed by those who count the largest beads on their rosaries. In a word, people barely hide it from neighbour or next‑door” (fol. 70 bis). He devotes several pages of first‑hand testimony to the behaviour (brazen) and talk (scandalous) of Roman courtesans, and warns the traveller not to linger before the door of a brothel for fear of being thrown out bodily. In Venice, the matrons of the camera locanda-i.e. lodging‑houses-“have you served by handsome young girls, whom you then serve in turn if you have a mind to, and that without any scandal” (fol. 137 verso).

Many passages inform us about culinary practices and particularities encountered along the way. His stages in Provence come with many dishes prepared in olive oil, whose pleasures he learns-willy‑nilly-to appreciate: in the Drôme, at Donzère, “We were served cabbage soup that was rather bitter, but cooked in oil; we were brought several courses of eggs-again cooked in oil. I wished to order them otherwise, as they seemed better to me, but it was always the same refrain; indeed, they were already heating the oil on the brazier to break them into […] I had difficulty even tasting it on a salad, but for once it proved necessary to grow accustomed to it; this teaches us that one must strive to eat of everything, for one does not always have the choice when away from home” (fols. 10 verso–11). In Orange, “They go on serving things in oil-the greater part fried-so that we may better accustom ourselves” (fol. 12 verso). Our enthusiastic tourist even tries to taste raw olives (!) at Mondragon, “but as they were new, therefore black, I thought they were then at their best; this curiosity cost me dear, for it caused a great bitterness in the mouth that lasted a long time” (fol. 12 verso). In Languedoc he finds a veritable “land of Cockaigne,” stopping at Vauvert: “I would gladly have wished that all other places had been transformed into Vouert [Vauvert], since one dines so well there” (fol. 190). Not every stage promises the same quality, and Cocquebert sometimes complains of meagre dinners or deplorable hospitality. One innkeeper in particular, near Pisa, made a dreadful impression: “a surly look, a beard like a dagger‑guard, eyes rolling and flashing like a hawk’s at night, his cap over one ear, and a stiletto-rather longer than a bayonet-hung from a belt over his left buttock” (fol. 37 verso).

Cocquebert brings back souvenirs of his tour: at an inn near Beaucaire he buys “a pair of espadrilles-rope‑soled shoes from Catalonia-very suitable for walking” (fol. 199), and gloves at Grenoble, renowned for their manufacture since the early modern period. In Bologna he says he “wanted to taste those sausages so renowned throughout France, and even to take some away; likewise to lay in a supply of certain soaps, of which they abound in this city-especially prized by men for the beard and by ladies for degreasing their hands” (fol. 155). Our traveller gives up the idea of carrying glass after visiting the workshops on the famed island of Murano: “we left the pieces there on account of their fragility, knowing full well they would not stand the trial like the bottles of the Capuchin fathers. We contented ourselves with looking at them, and watching others being worked, as well as blowing at their ‘sarbatans’ [sic], which made nothing but vessels like bottles; but when the young girls blew, instruments issued forth that made the whole company laugh” (fols. 44–44 verso).

Cocquebert’s oenological itinerary begins as soon as he leaves Lyon, providing an opportunity to sing the praises of the Condrieu vineyards, the famed white wine of the Vienne, planted since Gallo‑Roman times. In the seventeenth century it was much prized by the Parisian aristocracy, as the manuscript notes with regard to the astronomical prices fetched in the capital: “However good your provisions, you cannot help renewing and augmenting them […] Do not forget to take a bottle each; it sells for only 3 sous. Thus you will make a mere 22 sous, as the good fellow says, for in Paris it sells for 25” (fol. 8). The Italian vineyards are not forgotten, notably in Latium at Montefiascone-“the best wine one could imagine; since Florence, none better is to be found” (fol. 57). Cocquebert does not fail to recount the celebrated tale of a “German gentleman,” in reality one Joannes de Fuk of Augsburg, whose servant tested the wines of the region for him, marking the door of inns in chalk with the word “Est!”-“It is (here)!” At one inn in Montefiascone he was so delighted with the wine that he marked it with a triple “Est! Est!! Est!!!”. The bishop is said to have drunk himself to death on that wine. His tombstone bears this same triple exclamation, which Cocquebert faithfully records in the manuscript.

It was by taking advantage of the wine trade between France and Italy that our traveller made his return to La Ciotat, aboard the “barque of Captain Jacques of Frontignan” (fol. 176 verso), which carried the eponymous wine to the Italian coast. Cocquebert drank of it amply at Livorno with Reformed French officers, “arm in arm, to see who could recount the greater share of our adventures; we went to drink, as one says, a chopine, and some good Frontignan wine” (fol. 175 verso).

An exceptional story told by a Reims native still unknown to historians - one that enriches our understanding of popular life, gastronomy, and political history in seventeenth‑century France and Italy. Between the Grand Tour and the pilgrimage, this chronicle, at once full of incident and imbued with humour, yields unprecedented detail on dozens of localities in Languedoc and Provence, and plenty of Itali.

French places visited - Provence: Marseille, Île Pomègues, Les Pennes‑Mirabeau, Salon‑de‑Provence, Orgon, Saint‑Andiol, La Ciotat, Grotte Sainte‑Marie‑Madeleine (Sainte‑Baume), Saint‑Maximin, Cuges‑les‑Pins, Saccaron, Rousset, Aix‑en‑Provence, Le Merle (near Salon), Saint‑Martin‑de‑Crau. Comtat‑Venaissin: Avignon. Languedoc: Saint‑Gilles, Vauvert, Castelnau‑le‑Lez, Lunel, Nîmes (Tour Magne, Arènes, Maison Carrée), Beaucaire, Tarascon, Pont du Gard, Sanctuary of Notre‑Dame de Grâce (Rochefort‑du‑Gard), Comps, Laudun‑l’Ardoise, Pont‑Saint‑Esprit, Mondragon. Dauphiné: Montélimar, Romans‑sur‑Isère, Derbières, Saint‑Marcellin, Vinay, Moirans, Grenoble (Cathedral of Notre‑Dame, Place de Mal‑Conseil [today Place aux Herbes]), Artas, La Frette, Heyrieux, Saint‑Fons, La Guillotière. Lyonnais: Hôtel de Ville de Lyon, Vienne. Principality of Orange: Orange, Pierrelatte, Donzère.

Italian places visited  - Marche: Ancona, Loreto, Tolentino, Macerata, Recanati, Colfiorito, Serravalle, Valcimarra, Foligno. Latium: Rome, Frascati, Riano, Monterosi, Viterbo, Montefiascone, Bolsena, Centeno, Acquapendente. Umbria: Assisi, Perugia, Spoleto, Foligno. Tuscany: Livorno, Florence, Torrenieri, San Quirico d’Orcia, Radicofani, Siena, Staggia Senese, Poggibonsi, San Casciano in Val di Pesa, Bargino, Montelupo Fiorentino, Pontedera, Pisa, Pietramala, Certaldo, Castelfiorentino. Veneto: Venice, Murano, Padua, Conselve, Anguillara Veneta, Rovigo. Liguria: Genoa. Emilia‑Romagna: Rimini, Porto Candiano (Canal), Bologna, Ferrara, Modena, Reggio Emilia, Vignola, San Martino in Rio, Guastalla, Gonzaga, Polesine, Mantua.