Also known as Ludivico de Varthema, the Italian traveller from the town of Bologna has left behind him, a valuable account of his experiences of Vijayanagara in the early 16th century. He is believed to have lived between 1465-1517. He left from Venice in 1502 and travelled through Arabia, India, Central Asia, Burma, and Malaysia before sailing around Africa to return home in 1507. He was the first Christian known to have made a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy city of Mecca. His account of Middle Eastern and Asiatic wanderings was widely circulated throughout Europe and earned him high fame in his own lifetime. He made significant discoveries (especially in Arabia) and made many valuable observations of the peoples he visited.

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.

He describes Vijayanagar as a great city, "very large and strongly walled. It is situated on the side of a mountain, and is seven miles in circumference. It has a triple circlet of walls." It was very wealthy and well supplied, situated on a beautiful site, and enjoying an excellent climate. The king "keeps up constantly 40,000 horsemen" and 400 elephants. The elephants each carry six men, and have long swords fastened to their trunks in battle - a description which agrees with that of Nikitin and Paes. "The common people go quite naked, with the exception of a piece of cloth about their middle. The king wears a cap of gold brocade two spans long.... His horse is worth more than some of our cities on account of the ornaments which it wears." Calicut, he says, was ruined in consequence of its wars with the Portuguese.