Ramusio | Primo volume, & terza editione delle navigationi...; Secondo volume; Terzo volume, Venice, 1588-83-65

From the Library of Clayre and Jay Michael Haft

Giovanni Battista Ramusio

Primo volume, & quarta editione delle navigationi et viaggi; Secondo volume; Terzo volume. Venice: heirs of Lucantonio Giunta, 1588 (1587)-1583-1565

3 volumes, folio (322 x 218mm.), woodcut devices on title-pages, woodcut initials, maps, and illustrations, 7 double-page woodcut maps in vol.3, a few neat pencil inscriptions in Armenian at margins in vol.2, modern bindings reusing old vellum, blue edges, some foxing and dampstaining (heavier in vol.2), bindings worn

A mixed edition of Ramusio's influential and comprehensive collection of travel accounts, the first such compilation of both historical and recent narratives of discovery, and declaring the habitability of the whole world. The first volume, containing the travels of the Portuguese navigators along Africa and to the Indian Ocean, first appeared in 1550; the third volume, with the travels and conquests of the Spanish in south and central America in 1556, and the second volume, with tales of the French journeys in north America, in 1559. It was also suggested that Ramusio had planned a fourth volume about the Southern Continent and Oceania, which was never written as he died in 1557.

Ramusio worked for the Venetian state, which most likely gave him access to recent travel reports and enabled him to make contacts through diplomatic channels, particularly with foreign envoys in Venice. He also had good scholarly credentials, being connected with the main literary circles in Venice and being competent in Latin and Greek; he had previously engaged on editorial work for Andrea Navagero, and is praised by Aldus Manutius in the preface to his 1514 edition of Quintilian.

LITERATURE:

USTC 851975, 851974, 851972; Edit16 49426, 36412, 27293

PROVENANCE:

Carmelite Library in Lienz, Austria: "Carmeli Leontini" inscriptions in an eighteenth-century hand to titles; Karl Josef Hofinger, priest in the diocese of Salzburg (1863-1945): stamp to verso of final double-page map in vol.3 and trace of erased stamp to title of vol.1