They say that the City of Isfahan was once called Hecatonopolis, and that 2nd century Roman astronomer Ptolemy referred to it as Aspadana. In old Persian, the city was known as Sipahan, the plural form of a word meaning “the gathering place for armies,” and plural because the original city consisted of seven villages.

Tamerlane conquered the city in 1387 AD and named it Ispahan – with a p – by switching the first two letters of the old Persian name. The Persians call it Isfahan – with an f – from an Arabian word meaning rank or battalion.

The ambassador of Venice to Persia in 1473, Ambrogio Contarini, called the city Spaa, Spaam, and Aspacham. For our story, of course, the year is still 1637, and according to our intrepid author, Adam Olearius, Isfahan’s real name is Ispahan with a p. We will continue to call it Isfahan with an f.

The city lies in the province of Erak, which is ancient Parthia, on a spacious plain with mountains on all sides, making the city look like a geographic amphitheater. Counting all of its suburbs, the city is more than eight German Leagues in circumference, or some 36 miles, which is about as far as a man can travel in one day. There are 12 city gates, of which only nine are open, more than 18,000 houses, and about 500,000 inhabitants, which works out to nearly 25 persons per house.

What contributes most to the greatness of this city are the markets, the bazaar, the public baths, and the palaces, Olearius writes. But even better are the city’s gardens, and many houses have two or three gardens and most have at least one.