GREECE, TURKEY AND THE BALKANS
DESHAYES de Courmenin, Louis. Voiage de Levant fait par le commandement du Roy en l᾽année 1621.
Paris, Adrien Taupinard, 1629.
Second edition of this important and early voyage to the Levant made by the French diplomat Louis Deshayes, his first mission on behalf of the French Crown. Louis Deshayes de Courmenin must have possessed exceptional gifts of intelligence and know-how for the royal government to entrust him, at the age of 21, with such an important and particularly delicate mission. The mission entrusted to him in 1621, was to obtain from the Grand-Turk the maintenance of the Catholic Churches in the Holy Land, then in the possession of the French Cordeliers, against the attempted usurpations of the Greeks and Armenians, as well as the establishment of a French consulate in Jerusalem.
FROM THE NEW WORLD
MONARDES, Nicolas. Ioyfull newes out of the new-found vvorlde. Wherein are declared, the rare and singuler vertues of diuers herbs, trees, plants, oyles & stones.
London, Printed by E. Allde, by the assigne of Bonham Norton, 1596.
A fine copy of the very rare third edition in English, translated by John Frampton, of several most interesting Spanish treatises by Monardes. “The author was one of the most distinguished Spanish physicians of his time. This is the third edition, with additions, of the English translation of his book on the curative plants of the New World; the first and second editions having been printed in 1577 and 1580 respectively. The work opens with a notice on Columbus’s discovery, and among other things, contains a long article on tobacco.
SUPERB, VERY LARGE MAPS
ADRICHEM, Christian van. Theatrum Terrae Sanctae et Biblicarum Historiarum.
Cologne, Mylius, Hermann (I.), 1628.
Lavishly illustrated and unusually complete copy, in fine impression, of this superb biblical atlas. The first and last of these maps are frequently missing in recorded copies but finely preserved in this one. Produced in 1584, the plan of Jerusalem is a magnificent scholarly reconstruction of the city at the time of Christ, which remained unrivalled in accuracy until the archaeological discoveries of the C19.
FAMOUS TRAVELOGUE
MORYSON, Fynes. An Itinerary.
London, John Beale, 1617.
The first edition of this most influential English travelogue, with charming woodcut maps – a mine of information on Europe and the Middle East c.1600. Fynes Moryson (1566-1630) spent 8 years in the 1590s travelling in Europe and along the Mediterranean coasts. Upon returning to England in 1600, he was appointed secretary to Lord Mountjoy, whom he followed to Ireland to curb Tyrone’s Rebellion. ‘Itinerary’ gathers his own personal accounts of these travels; a fourth part was produced in ms but remained unpublished to 1903. ‘Throughout his travels, Moryson shows a protean ability to traverse conventional boundaries and markers of identity, […] a talent for dissimulation that he recommends for aspiring travellers’ (Netzloff, p.61).
FRENCH ACCOUNT OF CHINA
![[JESUIT LETTERS] CARVALHO, Valentin](https://sokol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/carvalho-416x721.jpg)
[JESUIT LETTERS] CARVALHO, Valentin. Lettre de la chine de l’an 1601.
Paris, Claude Chappelet, 1605.
Very rare first French translation of this important account of China by the rector of the Jesuit college at Macao, Valentin Carvalho, dealing with the Jesuit activities in the interior and giving a detailed account of Chinese society, first published at Rome in 1603.
ILLUSTRATED VOYAGE TO MALAYSIA – GERMAN-MALAY PHRASEBOOK
VERKEN, Johann; HULSIUS, Levinus, ed.; ARTHUS, Gotthardt, trans. Eylffter Schiffart ander Theil, […] von den Holl- und Seeländern in die Ost Indien.
Frankfurt-am-Main, E. Kempffer, 1613.
The first enlarged edition (first issue) of this illustrated account in German of a voyage to the East Indies, under the command of Pieter Willemsz Verhuffen, made by the Dutch and Zealanders in 1607-12. This edition comprises the second section of Part XI – first published in 1612, with a narrative reaching to 1609 only – of Levinus Hulsius’s (d.1606) famous collection of voyages. These – the greatest voyages by European navigators – were published separately, in 26 parts, from 1598 to 1660, by Hulsius and his successors (e.g., Erasmus Kempffer, as here) in Nuremberg and Frankfurt. Despite the numerous similarities, Hulsius’s accounts are ‘more useful, more curious and much rarer than the famed Collection of De Bry’ (Asher, p.9).
JESUIT LETTERS FROM ETHIOPIA, CHINA AND VIETNAM
VITELLESCHI, Mutio, trans. Lettere dell’Ethiopia Dell’Anno 1626 fino al Marzo del 1627. E della Cina Sell’Anno 1625 fino al Febraro del 1626.
Rome, Erede di B. Zannetti, 1629
The scarce first edition of three most interesting accounts of Jesuit missions in Ethiopia, China and Vietnam – with the first description in print of Tonkin, two further editions appeared in Milan and Parma the same year. These texts have survived only in their Italian translations (Backer-Sommervogel), made by Mutio Vitelleschi, (1563-1645), Sixth Superior General of the Society of Jesus, and professor of theology and philosophy at the Roman College.
SPLENDID CONTINENTAL MAPS
BOTERO, Giovanni; BRECQS, Guido de. Mundus imperiorum.
Oberusel, C. Sutorius, 1603.
A very scarce edition of an important history of world empires and a handsomely illustrated Americanum. It is accompanied by 5 beautifully engraved maps, recut to size, after those in the ‘Relationi’. America is illustrated in part in the map of Asia, and completely – as ‘America sive India Nova’ – in the world map, which shows New France, the Caribbean and native inhabitants (e.g., ‘anthropophagi’). Like Ortelius’s world map, it also features Terra Australis Incognita.
JESUIT RELATIONS
JESUIT RELATIONS. Nuovi avisi dell’Indie di Portogallo … terza parte.
Venice, Michele Tramezzino, 1562.
First Italian edition of an epistolary account of the Jesuit missions from all over the early modern world, translated from Spanish. It concerns in particular the vast maritime domain of the Portuguese Empire, consisting of numerous strategical harbours on the coasts of Africa, South Asia and South America.
TRAVEL ACCOUNT TO MOSCOW AND PERSIA
OLEARIUS, Adam. Relation du Voyage de Moscovie, Tartarie, et de Perse, .. depuis l’an 1633, jusques en l’an 1639.
A Paris, chez Pierre Aubouin, 1656.
The first French translation of this important travel account to Moscow and Persia by Adam Olearius, German scholar, and secretary to an embassy sent by the small German state of Holstein to explore an overland trade route with Persia. The first embassy was dispatched to Russia in 1633-34 to secure the tsar’s permission to travel, and ship through his realm. The second was sent in 1635 to complete the deal with the shah of Persia.
MOSCOW AND THE OTTOMAN TERRITORIES
![[MÜLLER, HEINRICH, ed. [with] HERBERSTEIN, Sigmund von.](https://sokol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/muller-416x654.jpg)
[MÜLLER, HEINRICH, ed.] (with) HERBERSTEIN, Sigmundvon. (1) Türckische Historien. (2) Moscoviter wunderbare Historien.
(1) Frankfurt, Paul Reffler, in v. Kilian Rebarts, 1570, (2) Basel, haer. Nikolaus Brylinger & Marx Russinger, 1567.
A finely illustrated sammelband of uncommon German ethnographic surveys of Muscovy and the Ottoman territories. I) Translated and edited by Heinrich Müller, ‘Türckische Historien’ is an adaptation of influential contemporary works on the Ottomans.
AMERICANUM BOUND FOR JAMES I
![BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] [with] DE BRY, Theodor.](https://sokol.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Untitled-42-416x512.jpg)
BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] (with) DE BRY, Theodor. (1) Regum Neapolitanorum vitae et effigies; (2) Indiae orientalis pars vndecima.
(1) Augsburg, sumpt. Dominici Custodis. Coelo Raphael Custodis, 1605. (2) Frankfurt, typis Hieronymi Galleri, 1619.
The beautifully illustrated, rare and important eleventh vol of Theodor De Bry’s Small voyages containing three important travel accounts including the relation of Vespucci’s third and fourth voyage to America, in a stunning, finely preserved, contemporary morocco binding from the library of James I, very much in the style of Bateman.