Rostagno, Giovanni Battista.

4to (223 x 165mm.), 416pp., illustration: one folding engraved map, binding: contemporary calf, spine gilt in compartments, some light browning, binding slightly rubbed

Piantanida, Autori italiani del '600, 1400; cf. Atabey 17 note

first edition. Rostagno was secretary to Carlo Emmanuele II, Duke of Milan, who had sent Rostagno and his general the marquis Ghiron Francesco Villa to help the Venetians at the siege of Candia. Villa fought from 1665 until 1668, then returned to Italy to die of his wounds in 1670; his fine baroque mausoleum is in the church of San Francesco in Ferrara. Rostagno's work, more an account of the siege of Candia than an account of Villa's travels, was used as a basis for several translations and abridgements, by writers such as Du Cros and Alquie.