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Rare early Italian edition of one of the first printed travel narratives, taking its reader to the Holy Land, Egypt, Turkey, Persia, Tartary, India, and China. Extremely popular during the Middle Ages and Renaissance, Mandeville's adventures set the stage for all European accounts of encounters with the east's great civilizations. All early editions, especially those in vernacular languages, are rare both institutionally and in commerce. This edition was the last Italian edition printed in the 16th century; subsequently, the Italian text did not appear again separately in print until Zambrini's 1870 edition. We traced only two copies in auction records, the most recent one being 60 years ago. An online institutional search returns 21 locations. The Voyages de Jehan de Mandeville chevalier, which appeared in manuscript in France c.1357, purports to be the personal account of Sir John Mandeville, born in St Albans, who left England in 1322 and travelled the world, serving the sultan of Cairo and visiting the Great Khan, and finally in 1357, while ill, setting down his discoveries. It covers his travels to the Middle East and Palestine, before he continues to India, Tibet, China, Java, and Sumatra, then returns westward via Arabia, Egypt, and North Africa. Most, if not all, was assembled from other manuscript sources, plausibly by Jean le Long (d. 1388), the librarian of the Benedictine abbey church of St Bertin at St Omer, then within the English pale. Parts of the narrative, including that extending from Trebizond to Hormuz, recognizably depend on Odoric of Pordenone (1330; first published 1513). Though Mandeville's framework of narration is fictitious, the substance is not. Without doubt, the author earnestly reported what his authorities recorded. The text was printed in Latin in 1483. The first Italian edition was published in Milan in 1480, followed by 12 more incunable editions and 10 editions in the 1500s, all printed before 1567. The late 15th-century popularity of the Italian editions is striking "when we remember that not only was Columbus himself an Italian, but that north Italy was at that time the main centre of discussion of the western and eastern voyages. Mandeville's information on Cathay was of importance to Columbus and probably Toscanelli before him; Cabot, Vespucci, and Behain all had connections with north Italy... the decline of Italian maritime and commercial supremacy in the mid sixteenth century exactly coincides with the cessation of [Italian] editions" (Moseley, p. 132). "This record of enthusiasm for Mandeville in the early days of printing is significant because these were also the early days of exploration and discovery... [the book] helped to create a demand for a route to China and the Indies, and so served as both imaginative preparation and motive force for the explorations and discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Even after the discovery of America, it continued to play a part in quickening the imaginations both of those who risked their fortunes and of the more humble sailors who risked their lives in looking for the wealth and wonders of the East in the new world in the West" (Bennett, pp. 231-6). "More than any other single work, the Travels of Mandeville set the stylized half-realistic, half-fanciful image of the East that predominated in western Europe during the Renaissance. Unlike Dante and Boccaccio, Mandeville utilized the travel and mission accounts to their fullest and sought to integrate this newer knowledge with the more traditional materials. Since his veracity was generally unquestioned until the seventeenth century, his work helped to mould significantly the learned and popular view of Asia. Even his monsters and marvels could apparently be accepted as long as they were relegated to places still relatively unknown. The fact that we know today that Mandeville did not make the trip as he pretended in no way detracts from the importance of his book in helping to integrate knowledge of the East and in shaping the Renaissance view of the "worlds" beyond the Muslim world" (Lach, p. 80). READ MORE Small octavo (149 x 97 mm): A-N8 O2; ff. 106. Near-contemporary limp vellum, yapp edges, evidence of ties, relined, endpapers renewed. Woodcut oval portrait of Julius Caesar on title page, woodcut initial. Foot of title trimmed removing early ownership inscription, residues of later removed paper labels on front pastedown and front free endpaper verso. Early manicula on p. 66. Vellum a little soiled and marked, inner hinge cracked, first gathering slightly loose with title page partly detached from gutter, delicate but holding, title page and following two leaves with small chip in outer margin and couple of wormholes (affecting a few letters), faint damp stain to lower margin of gatherings F-I and L-end, a few small marks, otherwise generally clean. A very good copy. Bennet, Italian, 24; EDIT16 CNCE 60995. Josephine Waters Bennett, The Rediscovery of Sir John Mandeville, 1954; Donald F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, vol. I, book 1, 1994; C. W. R. D. Moseley, "The availability of Mandeville's Travels in England,

Itinerarius, often known as The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, is a travel memoir recounting the journeys of the fictional Sir John Mandeville. It provides detailed descriptions of the cultures and places he visited.