Fracanzano da Montalboddo, Antonio

Itinerarium Portugallensium e Lusitania in Indiam et inde in occidentem et demum ad aquilonem. [Milan: J. A. Scinzenzeler], 1508



Small folio (11 ¼ x 8 in.; 285 x 204 mm), full-page woodcut map on title in first issue (reading "P[er]sicus"), rubricated; lacking the two-leaf index, remains of small leather placemark attached to fore-margin of first text leaf, light dampstain in upper fore-margin, a few light marginal spots. Old vellum; a remboîtage with new endpapers. 

Alden-Landis 508/4; Borba de Moraes I:580; Harrisse 58; Sabin 50058; see PMM 42

lacking the two-leaf index, remains of small leather placemark attached to fore-margin of first text leaf, light dampstain in upper fore-margin, a few light marginal spots. Old vellum; a remboîtage with new endpapers.
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An unusually fresh and tall copy of the first Latin edition, and the only edition with a map, of the first printed collection of voyages and travels in the Age of Discovery, including the earliest printed description of the voyage of Vasco da Gama.

One of the most important collections of voyages ever printed, as a "vehicle for the dissemination throughout Renaissance Europe of the news of the great discoveries both in the east and the west" (PMM). First printed in Italian at Vicenza in 1507, the work was translated into Latin by Archangelo Madrignano, and printed the next year.

The map is of particular interest as the first large map of Africa, and the earliest known map in which Africa is shown surrounded by ocean. The voyages include the first three of Colombus, the third voyage of Vespucci (to Brazil), Cabral's discovery of the coasts of Brazil, Guiana and Venezuela, Cadamosto's explorations along the coast of West Africa (1456), and Vasco da Gama's explorations of Africa and India, along with many others.

The cornerstone of any early Americana collection and of extraordinary rarity, in a crisp, wide-margined copy. Only one other complete (the Penrose-Streeter) copy has appeared at auction in the past 37 years, and that copy also lacked the two index leaves, but had the second issue of the map, had repairs to the title-page, had some marginal worming affecting side notes, and was nearly 20 mm shorter and narrower than the present copy.