- 3209
Magalhães, Gabriel de (1609-1677), S.J.
Estimate
400 - 600 GBP
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Description
- Nouvelle relation de la Chine... traduite du portugais en françois par le sr B [Claude Bernou, with a life of the author by L. Buglio]. Paris: C. Barbin (de l'imprimerie de C. Chenault fils), 1688
4to (235 x 180mm.), [26], 385, [11]pp., illustration: engraved folding plan of Beijing (Pekin), binding: contemporary French calf, gilt spine, 3B2-3 loose
Provenance
John, Bishop of Ossory, engraved bookplate dated 1709
Literature
Lust 57; Cordier, Sinica 36; see I. Pih, Le père Gabriel de Magalhaes, un jésuite portugais en Chine au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1979)
Catalogue Note
A popular work which was also published in English in the same year. The Portuguese original existed only in a manuscript brought back to Rome by Father Couplet and presented to the Cardinal d'Estrées, to whom this edition is dedicated, and who himself commissioned the translation, as is related in the anonymous (but clearly by the translator) preface. The Cardinal, it appears, was particularly interested in Beijing, which, one imagines, explains the presence of the plan.