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Delle navigationi et viaggi by RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista
Book Description
Venice: Giunti, 1563. First edition of Volume II, third editions of Volumes I and III . Three folio volumes (11 7/8 x 8 1/2 inches; 300 x 210 mm.). [iv], 34, 394 [i.e. 395]; [vi], 28, 155, [1, colophon]; [vi], 36, 430 leaves. Complete with all ten double-page maps, numerous full page maps and plans, intertextual woodcut engravings and historiated initials throughout. Nineteenth-century binding incorporating very early antiphonal leaves (lined in red and decorated with gold and blue initials; and the whole being speckled), burgundy morocco gilt lettering labels, marbled endpapers, edges stained red. Light edge chipping to labels, some age toning to vellum. Small oval stamps on first and last leaves and number in pen on title of first volume. Volume II with some old tidemarks to lower corner of fifty leaves. Very scattered browning. Overall, a very attractive, complete and clean copy of this fundamental set. One of the earliest and most interesting collections of 16th century voyages, this work was first published between 1550 and 1559. "This [work] may be said to have opened a new era in the literary history of voyages and navigation. This work served as a model to Hakluyt and was the first great systematic collection that had so far appeared. It was compiled during the latter half of Ramusio's life and is carefully and intelligently done, as he had devoted his mature years to historical and geographical study. It contains translations of works that had appeared previously in French, Latin, and Spanish, as well as some from manuscripts which had never before been published. Among these voyages are some of which no other editions have ever been found so that Ramusio remains an authority of the first importance" (Hill p.247). Each volume of this work was reprinted several times, the later issues having new matter added (thereby making the later editions more prized to collectors; a fact which is shown by the fact that all copies that come up for auction are mixed sets). This particular set is one of the most complete available and some of the new material made its first appearance in these particular volumes: To the edition of 1606 of Volume III (offered here), two new Relations were added: 1. Il Viaggio fatto da M. Cesare de' Federici nell' India Orientale, & oltre l'India, nequale si contiene, & insieme si descriue le Specierie, Droghe, Gioie, & Perle, che di detti paesi si cauano. 2. Et le tre Nauigationi fatte da gli Olandesi, & Zelandesi Settentrione, nella Noruegia, Moscouia, & Tartaria verso il Catai, & Regno de' Sini, doue scopersero il Mare di Vueygatz, & la Nuoua Zembla. Et vn paese nell' ottantesimo grado creduto la Groenlandia. Con vna descrittione di tutti gli accidenti occorsi di giorno in giorno a quei Nauiganti. The first volume treats almost exclusively of the discoveries in Africa and Asia; the second contains the stories of Marco Polo and other travellers in Asia, Russia and the North Seas; the third isexclusively devoted to America, and contains the Relatione d'un gentilhuomo del Sig. Fernando Cortese, and Cartier's first voyage, both of which were collected for the first time by Ramusio. It also includes translations of an extract from Peter Martyr of Columbus' discovery, Oviedo's work, letters of Mendoza and Coronado, the relations of Guzman, Ulloa, Alarcon and others, several accounts of the conquest of Peru, and accounts of the discoveries of Verrazano. This volume contains a double-page map of the Western Hemisphere that depicts California up to about the 38th parallel. The maps of Brazil and Peru are also of serious interst. The third volume contains many botanical, ethnological and zoological woodcuts specific to America the New World. Ramusio's work had immense influence on the subsequent course of exploration. John Locke accords it the highest praise, calling it "the most perfect work of that nature in any language whatsoever . . . judiciously compiled and free from that great mass of useless matter which swells our English Hakluyt and Purchas much more complete and full than the Latin De Bry, and in fine the noblest work of this nature" (Church). And Sabin wrote that Ramusio's collection of voyages is "one of the earliest and most important. It was edited with great care, and includes several relations not printed elsewhere. The third volume relates almost entirely to America." The Ramusio original home was in Rimini, and the municipality of that city set up a tablet on the town hall bearing an inscription which reads "The municipality of Rimini here records the claim of their city to the family of the Ramusios, adorned during the 15th and 16th centuries by 'the illustrious jurist and man of letters Paolo the elder, who rendered the work of Valturius, our fellow-citizen, into the vernacular; by the physician Girolamo, a most successful student of Oriental tongues, and the first to present Europe with a translation of Avicenna; and by Giovanni Battista, cosmographer to the Venetian republic and secretary to the Council of Ten, who bequeathed to the world that famous collection of voyages and travels, regarded in his own day as a marvellous work, and still full of authority among all civilized nations." Sabin 67732, 67736, 67742. Hill, pp. 248-9. Borba De Moraes, pp. 171-173.
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