Email this lot to a friend

« Email Address (separate multiple emails with a comma)

hide

Lot 28

translate

email

RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista (1485-1557). Delle navi

Sign In to see what this sold for

Venice: Stamperia di Giunti, 1554, 1583, 1606. 3 volumes (a mixed edtion set) folio (306 x 214 mm). 437; 257, 91; 430 pp. Each volume with woodcut title and printer's device on title and last page. Vol. I with 3 double-page woodcut maps (Africa, India, Indochina), chapter on Ethiopia with 6 woodcut plans of churches, Vol. III with 6 (of 7) double-page woodcut maps and plans including maps of the Western Hemisphere, Brazil, Newfoundland, West Africa, and Sumatra), other full-page woodcuts and woodcut illustrations in text. Uniformly bound in old Italian vellum, two morocco lettering labels stamped in gilt, modern endpapers, edges stained red. Condition: scattered dampstains, intermittent moderate browning most severe to a few leaves in vol. III; Brasil and New France maps repaired in the margins, few marginal repairs to text leaves, outer margin of volume 1 wormed, maps closely trimmed, few gatherings loose; spine loose from text block on all volumes, vellum scuffed with some soiling, spines rubbed. Acquisition: Sotheby's Milan, 1995, $10,934. one of the earliest and most important collection of travellers' accounts as issued by 'the italian hakulyt' with map of the western hemisphere the most complete of its time. "This is one of the earliest and most important collections of voyages and travels and may be said to have opened a new era in the literary history of voyages and navigation. This work... was the first great systematic collection that had so far appeared" (Hill 1418). The first volume primarily concerns with Africa and southern Asia. The second is concerned with Central Asia, Russia, and the Northern Seas, while the third volume is entirely devoted to America, and includes accounts of Peter Martyr, Oviedo (whose book XX is published here for the first time), Cortes, Cabeza de Vaca, Guzman, Ulloa, Coronado, Fray Marcos di Niza, Xerez, Verrazano and Cartier. The final section comprises the first general publication of Cartier's Canadian experiences. Accounts of Marco Polo, Niccolò Da Conti and Magellan are also included. The illustrations include many flora and fauna from the New World depicting plants and herbs, including cacti and Atlantic dolphin. There are also several woodcuts of Indian customs. The map of the Western Hemisphere, a result from his collaboration with Oviedo, is the most complete of its time (also depicting Japan as a group of islands) see Burden Mapping of North America 34 Block 2 1606 issue. The Newfoundland and Hochelanga maps, which resulted from Cartier's explorations, are similarly key in the cartographic history of Canada. "Ramusio, who truly earned the sobriquet of the Italian Hakluyt, was preëminent as an editor; he handled his material with great skill and produced acollection of unique value" (Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 1420-1620, p.306). Adams R-136 (vol. I); European Americana 563/22, 606/87, 556/38; Borba de Moraes II:698-99; Church 99; Cox I, p. 28. Harrisse 304; See Hill 1418, 1420, 1421; JCB (3) I:222, JCB (3) II:42, JCB (3) I:94; Sabin 67732, 67739, 67740; see G.B.Parks "The contents and sources of Ramusio's Navigationi", Bulletin of the New York Public Library, 59, (1955), pp.279-313. (3)

The map of Brasil (356-357) is misbound after pp. 241-242; has margins strengthened and extended.

Click on thumbnails to see larger images:

View Bloomsbury Auctions next auction.

Similar lots up for auction