describing to him the various scenes and dangers through which he had passed, moved forward towards Rome, where he arrived on the 28th of March, 1626, after an absence of more than twelve years.
His return was no sooner made known in the city than numerous friends and relations and the greater number of the nobility crowded to his house, to bid him welcome and congratulate him upon the successful termination of his travels. His presentation to the pope took place a few days afterward, when Urban VIII. was so charmed with his conversation and manners, that, without application or intrigue on the part of the traveller, he was appointed his holiness's honorary chamberlain,—a compliment regarded at Rome as highly flattering. In order to induce the pope to send out missionaries to Georgia, Pietro now presented him with a short account of that country, which he had formerly written; and the affair being seriously taken into consideration, it was determined by the society De Propaganda Fide that the proposed measure should be carried into effect, and that Pietro should be regularly consulted respecting the business of the Levant missions in general.
Early in the spring of 1627, he caused the funeral obsequies of his wife to be celebrated with extraordinary magnificence in the church of Aracœli at Rome. The funeral oration he himself pronounced; and when, after describing the various circumstances of her life, and the happiness of their union, he came to expatiate upon her beauty, his emotions became so violent that tears and sobs choked his utterance, and he failed to proceed. His auditors, according to some accounts, were likewise affected even unto tears; while others relate that they burst into a fit of laughter. If they did, the fault was in their own hearts; for, however extravagant the manner of Della Valle may have been, death is a
