Pietro della Valle | Viaggi, Rome, 1650-1663, 4 volumes, speckled calf

Pietro della Valle

Viaggi... con minuto ragguaglio di tutte le cose notabili osservate in essi, descritti da lui medesimo in 54 lettere familiari, da diversi luoghi della intrapresa peregrinatione (La Persia, parte prima—seconda; parte terza cioè L'India). Roma: Vitale Mascardi, 1650 (vol. 2: Biagio Deversin, 1658; vols 3-4: Deversin and Felice Cesaretti, 1658-1663)

4 volumes, 4to (213 x 153mm.), titles with armorial devices, volume one: dedication with woodcut initials, note to the reader with decorative headpiece and initial, laudatory poem, dedication to Pope Innocent X, second title-page with engraved device, without final blank leaf; volume 2: "La Persia parte seconda" (sic, i.e. "prima"), dedication to Pope Alexander VII; volume 3: dedication to Cardinal Flavio Chigi, without final blank; volume 4: dedication to Pope Alexander VII, note to the reader with decorative headpiece and initial, typographical plan of Antioch on Ee1; contemporary speckled calf rebacked, spines in compartments with raised bands gilt, marbled edges, some foxing and browning, a few marginal wormholes, some headlines shaved, covers repaired, slightly rubbed, upper joint of vol.3 splitting at head

A set of Della Valle's travels in Persia and India, with a few small annotations in Arabic in the fourth volume. This is variant C of the first part, according to ICCU, and does not contain the life of the author sometimes found in the fourth part.

PROVENANCE:

Ham Court, Worcestershire, armorial bookplate and ink shelfmarks