Books

First Latin edition of the first printed collection of voyages, written by Francanzano (aka Fracanzio) da Montalboddo, this copy with the second state woodcut map on the title page naming the Arabian Gulf ("Sinus Arabicus"). Fracanzio da Montalboddo (fl. 1507–1522) was an Italian humanist and university professor. His seminal compilation was first published in Italian in 1507 under the title Paesi novamente retrovati, an edition now unobtainably rare. The Latin translation, printed the following year, was made by the Milanese monk Arcangelo Madrignani, who also translated Varthema's Itinerario (1510; see following item). It quickly became "the most important vehicle for the dissemination throughout Renaissance Europe of the news of the great discoveries both in the east and the west" (PMM). The woodcut map, which appears for the first time in this Latin edition, is the first large map of Africa, the first known map in which that continent is depicted as surrounded by the ocean, as well as the earliest "modern" printed map to show Mecca. This is the preferred second state, distinguished by naming the Gulf as "Sinus Arabicus", as opposed to "Persicus." Also present is the rare two-leaf index, which is of crucial importance, as it gives an outline of the contents, identifying individual voyages and discoveries, whereas the text of the book runs continuously from section to section without distinguishing where a new one begins. These leaves were apparently printed after the publication of the work, and so inserted into the few available copies after the fact, and are therefore almost invariably missing. The work, which contains six nominal sections, begins with the voyages of Alvise de Cadamosto in Ethiopia and along the West African coast. Cadamosto travelled to Senegal, Gambia, and the Cape Verde Islands in 1455 and 1456. Cadamosto's account includes his observation from the mouth of the Gambia in 1455 of the Southern Cross, the earliest by a European navigator of the modern period. He notes the pole star was barely visible, appearing so low over the sea (about a third of a lance above the horizon) that it could be seen only on clear days. Looking due south, they caught sight of six stars low down over the sea, clear, bright, and large, which they took to be the southern "plaustrum" (plough or wain). Although relatively inexact, Cadamosto's observation long precedes João Faras's famous sketch and description of the constellation written in Brazil on Cabral's 1500 expedition, which itself was not published until the nineteenth century. Cadamosto is followed by accounts of Pedro de Sintra's expedition along the west coast of Africa as far as Sierra Leone in 1462; Vasco da Gama's epochal voyage to Africa and India (1497–99), "the earliest printed account of the voyage of Vasco da Gama... [which] opened the way for the maritime invasion of the east by Europe" (PMM), supplied by letters from Venetian spies in Portugal; and Pedro Alvares Cabral's discovery of the Brazilian, Guianaian, and Venezuelan coasts in 1500. The third section is a continuation of the Cabral narrative of the voyage on to India. The fourth is an account of Columbus's first three voyages (1492–1500), undoubtedly based on Peter Martyr's Libretto de tutta la navigatione de Re de Spagna de le isole et terreni novamente trovati, as well as narratives of the expeditions of Alonso Niño and Vicente Yañez Pinzon along the northern coast of South America. The fifth is Vespucci's letter to Lorenzo de' Medici describing his third voyage in 1501–2. The sixth is a compilation of information derived from several sources concerning the Portuguese discoveries in Brazil and the East. Montalboddo's collected voyages are called by Henry Harrisse "the most important collection of voyages" and asserted by Boies Penrose that "for news value as regards both the Orient and America, no other book printed in the sixteenth century could hold a candle to it". The work was the forerunner of the later compilations of Grynaeus and Huttich, Ramusio, Eden, Hakluyt, the De Brys, and Hulsius, "an auspicious beginning to the fascinating literature of the great age of discovery" (Lilly Library online). "This book is not a jewel, it is a cluster of jewels" (Rodrigues). READ MORE Small folio (250 x 178 mm). Bound in old vellum manuscript over pasteboard. Housed in a quarter morocco and linen box. Signatures: A–C8 D6 E–F8 G6 H8 I6 K–M8 N6 2a2 (index); [10], lxxviii [i.e., 88] leaves, with errors in foliation as issued. Three-quarter page woodcut map of Africa and Arabia on title, the map hand-coloured at an early date, three woodcuts, 10- and 3-lin. Bookplate of A. M. von Birckholz to the front pastedown, bookplate of Mittel Rheinisch Reichs Ritter Schafflichen Bibliothek to the verso of the title. A few tears to the spine exposing the block, but sound, right margin of the title trimmed close, just grazing the final letter of the first line to the woodcut border, occasional light spotting and soiling, small damp stain in the gutter of scattered leaves. Overall, an extremely fresh, unsophisticated copy. Bell F169; Borba de Moraes p. 580; Church 27; European Americana 508/4; Harrisse (BAV) 58; JCB (3) I:46; LeClerc 2808; Penrose Sale 172; PMM 42; Rodrigues 1295; Sabin 50058.