Niccolò da Poggibonsi, Viaggio... alla santa Gerusalemme, Bologna, 1500, half calf over wooden boards

Niccolò da Poggibonsi

Viaggio da Venezia alla santa Gerusalemme e al monte Sinai [edited by Joannes Cola]. Bologna: Justinianus de Ruberia, 6 March 1500

Chancery folio (283 x 197mm.), 48 leaves (of 68), a⁶ b⁴ c-d⁶ e-h⁴ i⁶ k-l⁴ m⁶ n⁴ o⁶, 53 lines, gothic type, woodcut illustrations, woodcut printer's device below colophon, contemporary wooden boards with later calf spine in period style, two clasps, lacking 20 leaves (quires a, b, d and e, all supplied in photocopied facsimile), a few small paper repairs, last few leaves with larger paper repairs (some affecting text), stain on final leaf, boards very wormed

FIRST EDITION of this influential account of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land from Venice, via Cyprus, Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria, written by the Franciscan Niccolò da Poggibonsi following his eventful journey there in 1346-1350, during which he survived shipwreck and attack by pirates. It is considered the first pilgrimage guidebook in the vernacular, and several manuscripts are recorded (sometimes called the Liber d'Oltramare), some with illustrations, but this first printed edition did not include Niccolò's name, and neither did any of the numerous subsequent printed editions. Later in the sixteenth century the name of Noe Bianchi was mistakenly added to editions, following the publication of his own pilgrimage account in 1566 (he died in 1568).

The printing of this work in Bologna means that the language has been altered to make it sound more Bolognese than Tuscan. The printing was financed by Giovanni Cola, whose letter of dedication is addressed to a prince of Carpi, the martial Giberto Pio, who died shortly after publication.

The woodcuts are usually attributed to Piero Ciza, as his name appears in the title-page frame. They are taken from the surviving illustrated manuscripts, the earliest of which (BNCF II.IV.101) is plausibly Niccolò's own, with his drawings of what he saw. The following edition, printed in Venice in 1518, contained additional woodcut illustrations, some taken from Bernhard von Breydenbach's Peregrinatio which was first printed in 1486. For the 1529 edition, see lot 163.

RARE: ISTC records just 11 copies, and we have not been able to trace any recent auction records.

LITERATURE:

ISTC in00044200; Kathryn Blair Moore, "The disappearance of an author and the emergence of a genre: Niccolò da Poggibonsi and pilgrimage guidebooks between manuscript and print", Renaissance Quarterly 66 (2013), 357-411