My project explores Italian merchant Filippo Sassetti’s commercial activities in India and his effect on Cardinal Ferdinando I de’ Medici’s court culture in late sixteenth-century Rome. While living in Goa and Kochi from 1583 to 1588, Sassetti hand-selected Indian goods for Ferdinando and provided vivid narrative descriptions of his experiences. He acted both as an interpreter of visual and cultural knowledge and as a transregional commercial intermediary facilitating trade between Rome, Portugal, and India. My project contributes to this area of Indo-Italian exchange by engaging with disparate conversations including globalization, the relationship between text and image, and the social life of art objects. By looking at the role of Sassetti and his commercial networks in India, this research highlights the contributions of merchants in the production of visual culture and global knowledge in Ferdinando’s court.