Gianni, Vittorio.MareMagnum
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Folio (235 x 170 mm). Italian manuscript in two parts with 29 original pen and ink drawings (15 and 14), written in black ink in a neat, legible hand, 28 lines to a page. (1), 95, (1) pp. (including illustrations numbered in pencil, upper right, but recto only). Collation, including illustrations: [1 f., 1 p.], [21 ff., 35 pp.], [6 pp.], [17 ff., 26 pp.], [5 pp.] (several sheets cut so that a tab only remains of the second page, and all illustrations tipped in). Contemporary half vellum over marbled paper boards. Generally written on both recto and verso, except for the two title-pages and the illustrations (recto only); all but first and last page enclosed with a single line border, in pencil for text pages and in ink for illustrations. Unpublished manuscript giving a vivid and event-filled first person account of a journey from Urbino to Constantinople, well legible and beautifully presented with 29 equally unique pen-and-ink illustrations. - A unique account of a journey from Urbino to Constantinople and back, in 1769-70, hand-written and accompanied by 29 original drawings, which offer views of islands rarely if ever depicted in contemporary travel accounts or series. No counterpart has been found for the illustrations, which appear to have been prepared from eye-witness records. That the artist may have been the author himself is suggested by the fact that he makes no mention of a separate artist, and by the manner in which he introduces the first illustration: 'Il Paise è piccolo come vedrassi della figura, che di curiosita, ed intelligenza di lettori porro a piedi di questo capitolo' (p. 5v). The story of his adventure is equally idiosyncratic, incorporating both a record of foreign places, people and customs common to other such literature, and also an account of a personal tragedy and a dangerous sea-voyage. The manuscript falls within a tradition of cultural exchange and travel writing between Europeans and the Orient; but unlike Luigi Mayer, for example, employed to make drawings of the historical buildings of Constantinople by the English ambassador Sir Robert Ainslie shortly afterwards, or J. B. Hilair, whose paintings made on a trip throughout the Empire with the French ambassador Count Choiseul-Gouffier in 1776, and engraved and published in Gouffier's "Voyage pittoresque de la Grèce" (1778-82), Gianni appears to be an entirely independent figure. Though the manuscript is set out like a printed book and was presumably destined for wider distribution in that form as a money-making enterprise, Gianni does not seem to have been commissioned, nor to have hoped for patronage. His stated aim is simply to give a true account to his readers, in case they might wish to undertake a similar journey. His route takes him through great cities such as Venice, Athens, Smyrna and Gallipoli, ancient sites such as Troy and Heraklia, through the Peloponnesus and islands such as Mykonos, Corfu, Maitos and Skios, all of which he describes and depicts in detail. Meanwhile, although he says that he is not writing in order to leave "una viva ricordanza di me, come di soggetto qualificato", that is precisely what he does: the second part of the book recounts his search for his son from whom he had heard nothing but that he had married a Greek girl. Reunited with him through a doctor who has been helping the boy through an illness, he tries to persuade the young couple to return with him to Urbino, but this plan is thwarted by the machinations of the doctor. His journey home, alone, is enlivened by an encounter with corsairs, a near shipwreck, a boy falling overboard and a violent storm. The value of this book lies not only in the unique, unpublished text and illustrations, and legible and attractive presentation, but also in the combination of commonly-found themes such as dress and customs, with an entirely personal and richly-told narrative of one man's search for his son. - One illustration (Smirne) has been trimmed along the right edge after having been bound in. Etched armorial bookplate of an unidentified noble bishop on front pastedown.
Folding map of Arabia (180 x 135 cm), coloured in outline, dissected and mounted on cloth (24 sections). The exceptionally rare first independently issued edition of this famous, meticulously prepared map of Arabia and the Gulf. The "Hunter map" is an enormous, wall-size chart showing an astounding degree of detail. The "Gulf portion being largely based on actual surveys can be considered fairly accurate. [...] Kuwait (except that portion based upon actual surveys) Hasa, Jabal Shammar, Qasim, 'Aridh, Oman, Hadhramaut are the result of exhaustive use of detail supplied by travellers supplemented by months and months of enquiry by local Political Officers. The map of these portions can certainly claim superiority over any previous work of the kind" (Notes on the Map of Arabia and the Persian Gulf [...] compiled by Capt. F. Fraser-Hunter 1905-1908 [Calcutta, 1910], p. 1). - The Canadian-born Hunter later became a major figure in British India's Intelligence Service. As the author recalled in his 1919 "Reminiscences", "a great deal of the information on the map was from sources considered secret at the time" (p. 357). Special surveys of the country's interior areas were carried out to achieve a hitherto unprecedented degree of accuracy: "The map was a distinct advance on anything which existed, as in 1908 no general map of Arabia on such a large scale existed" (p. 360). - Hunter's map was first issued in a very limited press-run to accompany John G. Lorimer's "Gazetteer of the Gulf" (1908); at that time it still bore the title, "Map of the Persian Gulf, 'Oman, and Central Arabia". It was subsequently used (and praised) by St John Philby during his journey across Arabia. Indeed, reliable topographical information was an invaluable asset not least to the local Sheikhdoms in their territorial disputes during this politically volatile age: Hunter recounts that on one occasion, the Sheikh of Umm-al-Qaiwan went so far as to torture his relative, the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi, into signing away his right to strategically important islands in the Arabian Gulf, a stratagem foiled only by the happy intervention of the British Political Resident. - Stamp of the University Library of Nijmegen on the cloth backing. A very few minute traces of worming, otherwise in fine, spotless condition. Never seen in the trade: the only two copies of this map in auction records were both of the 1914 issue (Christie's, 2012, and Sotheby's, 2013). Not in Al Ankary or Al-Qasimi.
Folio (29 x 22 cm). 63, (10) ff. Manuscript in Dutch, written in ink on paper, with two loosely inserted supplements (2 bifolia), with a calligraphic title-page (in script lettering with an interior white line giving an incised effect) and 39 pages of (mostly) ink and grey ink wash drawings of inscriptions, musical instruments, buildings, etc., including 3 pages of Kufic inscriptions in black ink with vowel points in red and decorations in red, yellow and green, and a few other written inscriptions showing the styles of script, plus a small drawing of an inscription and a few written examples in the text. Contemporary half canvas, sides covered with printed pattern paper (a matrix of 4-petalled rosettes on a background of horizontal and vertical lines, and dots, in red, blue and yellow, sewn on 3 vellum tapes and tacketted to the canvas spine through a vellum liner. A Dutch illustrated manuscript devoted to the Arabian Peninsula and neighbouring regions, compiled in 1785 by (and the illustrations drawn by) Johan Louis Gerlagh (1735-98), a director of the Dutch West India Company and East India Company (WIC and VOC). He takes a special interest in the various and styles of script, including Egyptian hieroglyphs and at least six styles of Arabic script (kufic, naskh, ta'liq, thuluth, ruq'ah and maghribi), but he also discusses and illustrates bas-reliefs, buildings (including the Great Mosques at Mecca and Medina), musical instruments, footware, a scarab, etc., and provides tables of data concerning tides, compass corrections and temperatures, and accounts of the Islamic calendar, precious stones, weights and measures and coins. The title describes the manuscript as notes from Carsten Niebuhr's "Reize naar Arabië en andere omliggende landen", a Dutch translation (Amsterdam & Utrecht 1776-78) of the German "Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien" (Copenhagen 1774-78), but Gerlagh apparently treats Niebuhr's complementary "Beschryving van Arabie" (1774, first published in German in 1772) as an additional volume of the Reize. All the illustrations and most of the text are copied from these two publications. Gerlagh does make use of other sources, however, quoting from Bernhard von Breidenbach's "Peregrinatio in Terra Sanctum" (1486); Heinrich Buenting's "Itinerarium scripturae" (1581); Fredrik Hasselquist's "Travels in the Levant" (1766); J. F. Martinet's "Historie der waereld" (1780-87), and Joseph de la Porte's "Nieuwe reisiger, beschryving van de oude en nieuwe weereldt" (1766-91). - Gerlagh came from a patrician family that had ties with the WIC by at least 1720 (including a director by 1730) and the VOC by at least 1735. He himself was a director of both by 1764. Although he is recorded moving from Tholen to Oosterhout (northeast of Breda) in 1779, this may have been a second residence, for he had already set up in Hoeven (west of Breda) where he served as "schout" (head of the municipality) from 1771 to 1794, his wife died there in 1786 and he died there in 1798, so he probably produced the present manuscript there. His amateur drawings and sketchbooks, most of them in Museum Gouda, have been exhibited. - The manuscript collates: [A]14 (- A9) [B]10 (B1 + [chi]2; - B7, 9, 10) [C]2 [D]4 [E]2 [F]4 [G]6 (± G1, 2, 3, 6) [H]4 [I]2 [K]-[N]4 2[chi]1 [O]-[P]4 [Q]2 = 73 ff., with E2 and H4 blank except for the leaf numbers (ff. 30 & 34). The main paper stock (including the endpapers at the front and probably also at the back) is watermarked: crowned GR in laurel branches, in a circle = Dutch garden (with "Pro Patria" above toward the centre of the sheet) above "H K P" (the main mark can appear in the left or right half sheet). We have not found or identified the initials HKP. After the last numbered leaf (2[chi]) a new part of the text begins with a different paper stock to the end of the manuscript (quires O-Q), similar but with no initials below the Dutch garden, in the general style of Heawood 3700 (1747) and Voorn, Noord-Holland 140 (1790). The cancel leaf G6± may come from the same stock, while the cancel leaves G1±, G2± and G3± show a different stock or stocks: G3± with a lion with 7 arrows, lance and freedom hat (pedestal with "VRYHEYT") in a crowned ring (double lines inside and out) containing (in mirror image) "Pro patria eiusque libertate"), in the general style of Heawood 3148 (1745) and Voorn, Noord-Holland 104-111 (1713-49); and G1± and G2± with the countermark "J[an] H[onig] & zoon", that form shown with a different main mark in Voorn, Noord-Holland 133 (1741). The firm name in the present form, with the present "zoon" (son), is recorded from 1735 to at least 1764 (probably at least 1768), changing to "zonen" (sons) probably by 1774 and certainly by 1793. So the paper used for these three cancel leaves may be several years older than the manuscript itself. - The manuscript is internally in good condition, with most deckles preserved. Binding worn but professionally restored. A good example of the fascination of leading figures in the VOC and WIC with the Arabian Peninsula and vicinity and with Islamic culture. For Niebuhr and his accounts of Arabia: Hamilton, Europe and the Arab world 48; Howgego, to 1800, N24; for Gerlagh: Katalogus ... tekenwerk-schilderwerk van Johann Louis Gerlagh (1987); A. Romeijn, De stadsregering van Tholen (1577-1795) (2001), pp. 229f.
4to. (73), (1 blank) ff. With woodcut allegorical and architectural title-page with putti and mythological women holding drapes hanging from an arch and the Royal Portuguese coat of arms at the foot, 40 woodcut (geometrical and optical) figures in text, Rodericus's large full-page emblematic woodcut printer's device (a dragon with the motto "Salus vitae" on a banderole) and many woodcut initials. Bound in a period-style Italian calf binding, gold-tooled spine, blind-tooled frames on front and back boards and gold-tooled centerpieces on the front and back board with "Petri Nonii" on the front board and "MDXLII" on the back board. First edition of two of the most important and rarest scientific works on twilight and optics. The first is written by the greatest Portuguese mathematician Pedro Nunez (1492-1577), who served as cosmographer royal to the court of João III. His "De crepusculis" discusses new solutions for problems concerning twilight (such as the shortest twilight period) and the refraction of light, and announces his new instrument for measuring exceedingly small angles, now called a “nonius”. - The second work, also entitled "De crepusculis", was written (according to the title-page) by the greatest Islamic physicist Ibn Al-Haytham (965-1039), from living in the Arabian Peninsula, whose seminal work on optics broke with ancient Greek theories. In fact, the work is now attributed to the great Andalusian father of spherical trigonometry, the 11th-century mathematician and astronomer Abu ‘Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Mu’adh, who was described by Averroës as "advanced and high-ranking" (Sabra, p. 85), but about whom very little is known. His work discusses the density of the atmosphere and establishes a relationship between atmospheric pressure and altitude. It also notes that twilight only ceases or begins when the sun reaches 19 degrees below the horizon. It was translated from Arabic into Latin by Gerard de Cremona (1114-87), who brought Arabic science to the West. This work is one of the artifacts through which Islamic civilisation made significant and crucial contributions to scientific knowledge in the pre-modern age during their golden age of Arabic science, although the Latin translations in this field only provide "a dim reflection of the true splendour of achievements" (Gerli, p. 804). - With an owner's inscription at the head of the title-page and a handwritten impressum on the title-page in the same hand, three faint library stamps (two of a library in Douai) and with marks of an erased bookplate on the front pastedown. Binding very slightly worn around the spine, some small stains on the endpapers, but otherwise a beautiful copy in very good condition. Adams N 375. DSB X, 160f. Honeyman 2353. Houzeau/Lancaster 1188 & 2473. King Manuel 48. Palau 196.748. Poggendorff II, 305. Sabra, "The authorship of the Liber de crepusculis", in: Isis 58.1 (1967), pp. 77-85. Stilwell 781 & 863. Cf. Carmody, Arabic Astronomical and Astrological Sciences in Latin Translation; Gerli, Medieval Iberia (2003), p. 804. Not in Vagnetti.
8vo. 8 vols. (6 volumes & 2 supplements): v. 1. Tribes north of the Kabul River. 1907. (4), IV, XIX, (1), 591, (1) pp. With 8 plans and 2 separate maps in both cover pockets. - v. 1, suppl. A. Operations against the Mohmands (including operations in the Khaiber, 1st-7th May) 1908. 1910. (4), II, (2), 60, LVIII pp. With 2 maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 2. North-west frontier tribes between the Kabul and Gumal Rivers. 1908. (4), III, (1), 461, (1) pp. With 6 folding plans and 1 separate map in lower cover pocket. - v. 2, suppl. A. Operations against the Zakka Khel Afridis 1908. 1908. (8), 49, (1) pp. With 3 maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 3. Baluchistan and the First Afghan War. (6), VII, (3), 466 pp. With 2 folding tables, 2 plans (1 folding), and 4 separate folding maps in lower cover pocket. - v. 4. North and north-eastern frontier tribes. 1907. (4), IV, 249, (1) pp. With 7 maps and plans and 1 separate folding map in lower cover pocket. - v. 5. Burma. 1907. X, (6), 468 pp. With a folding map in lower cover pocket. - v. 6. Expeditions overseas. 1911. (4), X, (2), 515, (1) pp. With 14 maps (many folding) and 5 separate folding maps in lower cover pocket. Uniformly bound in contemporary quarter calf over green cloth covers with giltstamped spine labels. An excessively rare counterpart to Lorimer's simultaneously published Gazetteer of the Gulf: like it, classified at the time of its issuing as a confidential British government document and still well-nigh unobtainable in the original printing, this third and last issue of Paget's and Mason's "Frontier and Overseas Expeditions" remains the most important single source on Raj-based military frontier operations carried out up to the First World War. The work was first compiled in 1873 by Colonel W. H. Paget as "A Record of Expeditions against the North-West Frontier Tribes", with the intention of providing a "valuable guide" to such British commanders and policymakers as "might have future dealings with these turbulent neighbours". It was revised in 1884 by A. H. Mason of the Royal Engineers. Three decades later, the frontiers of British influence had vastly expanded: they now reached to the borders of Afghanistan and Persia, and a newly compiled record of expeditions was urgently required. Under the editorship of Lieutenant C. F. Aspinall and Major R. G. Burton, the work known as "Paget & Mason" was thoroughly overhauled and expanded to six volumes, replete with maps and each dealing with a distinct geographical division, with two supplements. Only a few hundred copies would have been printed for circulation to British government departments, regimental libraries, and agencies. The present set, issued to the 7th Division Military Society in 1908 (later the Bareilly Brigade Military Library), bears the giltstamped copy numbers 217, 220, 221, 222, 258, 262, and 1134 (supplement). - The sixth volume deals in depth with "The Arabian Peninsula and the Islands of Perim and Socotra". It includes a sketch of the geographical situation before discussing in more detail the First Expedition to Ras-al-Khaimah in 1809 ("political causes - composition of the force - arrival at Masqat - arrival at Ras-al-Khaimah - description of Ras-al-Khaimah - landing of main body - capture of Ras-al-Khaimah - bravery of enemy - burning of pirate vessels - losses - Lingeh - repulse of the troops - re-embarkation - daring action by Lt. Hall, IN - attack on Shanas - desperate resistance"). It is noteworthy that the British officers here felt compelled to record the military gallantry of the al-Qasimi in their resistance to the British forces. Similarly, the Second Expedition to Ras-al-Khaimah in 1819 is treated, as is the Bani-Bu-Ali Expedition of 1810 (mentioning the results of "bad diplomacy" and "bad tactics", and citing the bravery of an Imam who displayed "great personal courage" while endeavouring to save an artilleryman). Further sections are given over to the islands of Perim (occupied in 1799 and again in 1856) and Sokotra, of which British infantry took possession in 1834 after "the Sultan would not come to terms". Additional chapters treat the Persian side of the Gulf and military expeditions to the same. - Corners somewhat bumped, but altogether a tightly bound, handsome and well-preserved set. 1910 and 1911 stamps of the Bareilly Brigade Military Library to most volumes (but stamp of W. B. Salmon to the supplement to vol. 2). Warning "For Official Use Only" stamped in gilt to spine labels throughout, with most title-pages being correspondingly imprinted (in red ink up to vol. 2). As the publisher's original inserted slip advises, the General Map of Afghanistan called for in the list of maps to volume 3 was not, in fact, completed and therefore was never issued with the set. Of the utmost rarity: not reproduced within the Cambridge Archive Editions series, although incomplete reprints appeared in Quetta in 1979 and in Delhi in 1983. - Provenance: 1) 7th Division Military Society, 1908; 2) Bareilly Brigade Military Library, 1910/11; 3) U.S. private collection. OCLC 821799.
Oblong 1º (475 × 630 mm). 6 lithographed plates of horses, plus 1 additional lithographed view of the stud, all coloured by Pirscher himself with highlights in gum arabic. The first plate of the series with Pirscher's autograph signature and dated "1828". Unique set of Pirscher's famous series picturing the Duke's horses, coloured by Pirscher himself and obviously prepared for the owner of stud. The first horse depicted is Mirza, a "Silver grey national Arabian with red spots on his left shoulder, presented to the King of England by the Shah of Persia in 1819. As the Persian envoy assured the King, this was the noblest and most excellent Arabian ever to have stood in his master's stables". The other illustrations show mainly descendants of Mirza, who was transferred to the Ducal stables in 1821. The series was later expanded by another instalment to a total of 16 plates, with three of the seven plates redrawn and showing different backgrounds. Thieme/Becker lists the series as complete with 6 plates as present, as does Steinacker (cf. below). Apart from the present copy, neither the first series (as thus) nor the second, expanded edition is known in a coloured version. The use of body colours in this set underlines the fact that Pirscher's lithographs, issued in black and white only, were never intended for colouring, and that this set was eleborately redone and modified (with numerous details - such as the trees and bushes in Mirza's portrait - added by hand) by the artist himself to form a unique dedication copy for his sponsor. Karl Dietrich Pirscher (1791-1857) is one of the pioneers of lithography in Braunschweig. His horse plates are considered his best work and were praised as "probably the most splendid specimens of their kind created in the entire 19th century" (Steinacker). Provenance: 1. The Duke of Braunschweig's collection. 2. I. H. Anderhub library, dispersed by auction in 1963 (in which it constituted the second most expensive item, with an estimate of DM 2600). Slightly browned; some minor fraying to the extremities of the leaves and a few specks, otherwise in very good condition. Bibliotheca Hippologica I. H. Anderhub 238 (this set). Steinacker, Die graphischen Künste in Braunschweig, 114. Thieme/Becker XXVII, 90. Not in Bibl. hippologica Johan Dejager; Huth; Mennessier de la Lance; Podeschi.
Folio (556 x 735 mm). (6), VI, 90 pp. Tinted lithographed title with a pictorial border comprising 11 scenes of hawking by J. B. Sonderland, 2 hand-coloured lithographed plates of falconry equipment by Portman and von Wouw, and 10 (of 12) hand-coloured lithographed plates of hawks by Wendel after Joseph Wolf (8 of which mounted on board). Stored loosely in original cloth-backed printed boards. First edition of "the finest work on falconry that has ever been produced; not only on account of the beauty of the plates, wherein the hawks are depicted life-size and of the natural colours, but also for the general accuracy of the letterpress" (Harting). Schwerdt concurs that "the life size illustrations of birds are by far the finest ever produced in any book on falconry. It is impossible to describe the mellowness and beauty of the colourings." The "Traité de fauconnerie" is the rarest, most beautiful and most desirable book on falconry ever published. According to the exhibition catalogue documenting the falconry books in the Dutch Royal Library (The Hague, 1993), probably no more than 100 copies were printed, of which no more than 50 can be located today. - Covers of portfolio somewhat rubbed and stained; spine cloth and extremeties professionally restored. Some foxing and browning to plates; several marginal tears and chips professionally repaired and rebacked. Lacking 2 lithographed hawking scenes by J. Dillmann after Sonderland. Still an attractive set, uncommonly encountered in the original portfolio as issued. Harting 194. Schwerdt II, 150. Thiebaud 833. Nissen IVB 832. Fine Bird Books, p. 105. Zimmer p. 554.
4to (150 x 208 mm). 70 ff. (numbered 3-71 and 74) of hand-drawn costumes. India ink and gouache heightened in silver and gilt on laid, watermarked paper, polished in the oriental style. Bound in full modern fawn calf signed by J. E. Baudrillart, covers ruled in blind, spine sparsely gilt with title. Top edge gilt. Marbled endpapers. A beautifully crafted album comprising seventy portraits painted by a Turkish artist in colours, gold and silver, illustrating the various offices at the Ottoman court, people of various occupations, different ethnic groups, and their traditional costumes. Most of the portraits are accompanied by captions inscribed in Osmanli at the bottom of the page. One of them, representing Sultan Mehmet IV (1642-93, ruled 1648-87) on his throne, has in the lower part an inscription in French, "Mehemet Grand Seigneur / 1660" (no. 67). Among the further subjects depicted are Janissaries, a porter (hamal), a davul player, messengers of the court, the bearer of the Sultan's sword, women adorned in various costumes, and foreigners. - Albums of this kind were known as muraqqa': compiled from various sources, they were often created to order, by or for Europeans, as gifts to members of Western embassies or as travel souvenirs. European courts appreciated them as valuable sources of diplomatic information. Several similar examples from the second half of the 17th century have survived, among which one of the most famous is the so-called Rålamb Dräktboken (Raland Book of Costumes), acquired in 1657/58 by Claes Ralamb, the Swedish ambassador to the Sublime Porte, and now kept at the Royal Library of Sweden. - A magnificent survival, handsomely bound by Jean-Eudes Baudrillart of Paris. F. Hitzel (ed.), Turkophilia révélée. L'art ottoman dans les collections privées. Catalogue d’exposition publié à l’occasion du 14e congrès international d’art Turc, Collège de France (Galerie Charpentier), 19-23 Sept. 2011, pp. 72f.
74 x 48 cm. A fine example of Giacomo Gastaldi's map of Southeast Asia, China, and India, perhaps the single most influential map of the region published in the 16th century. - Gastaldi's map has a remarkable history, one that presents a microcosm of Italian mapmaking in the middle of the 16th century. It begins with the publication of a single section in 1559, which was intended as a separate map. Additional sections were added in 1561, creating the portion of the existing map which extends south to the Equator. In 1565, two additional sections were added, in order to show all of Indonesia and the neighbouring islands as far south as Java Minor. - "In its original form the map extended only to the equator, so that most of the Indonesian islands were not included. To remedy this, in about 1565, two narrow sheets were made by the great Italian engraver Paolo Forlani to supplement the main body of Gastaldi's map [...] This lower addition bears an inscription in the lower left corner which reads 'si vende...' [...] indicating the location of the shop of the publisher Bertelli" (Suarez). - Of all of Gastaldi's Asian continental maps, this one more than any other "had a major influence on the work of Ortelius and de Jode [...] In their representation of the coastlines his maps are superior to all previously known maps of Asia, either drawn by hand or printed" (Schilder, in: The Map Collector 17, p. 7). - On the right-hand side of the map, Gastaldi provides a list of about 100 place names on the map, showing both their ancient and modern names. In his excellent study of Gastaldi's maps of Asia and their relationship to the accounts of Marco Polo's travels, Nordinskold notes that while Gastaldi has clearly incorporated information from Marco Polo's travels, Gastaldi relied also upon the accounts of other contemporary travelers to the East. Most notably, the dedication to Marcus Fugger (1529-97) is strong evidence that Gastaldi had access to the Fugger family library, one of the most important libraries compiled in the 15th and 16th centuries. During the 16th century, the Fugger Library was perhaps the best private library in the world, surpassing even the Vatican Library. - Nordinskold goes on to note: "Finally, it must be remembered that Gastaldi, under the guidance of Ramusio, is supposed to have aided in repairing or repainting the famous wall-maps in Sala dello scudo in Venice [...] If such was the case, it may be considered probable that the monumental maps of Africa and Asia by Gastaldi have had some connection to [Gastaldi's map of Asia], that these copper-plate engravings are a reproduction of the originals of the wall maps in that form which was given them in the middle of the 16th century". Quirino notes that Gastaldi's map is the first appearance of the name "Philippines" ("Philippina") on a printed document. - The map is rare on the market. We note no examples of this first edition of the map on at auction or in recorded dealer catalogs in at least 15 years. Tooley, Italian Atlases 63. Karrow 30/92 (note). Woodward, Forlani 36 (note). Suarez, South East Asia, pp. 130-157 Quirino, Philippine Cart., p. XV & 95. Nordinskold, The Influence of the "Travels of Marco Polo" on Jacobo Gastaldi's Maps of Asia, in: The Geographical Journal 13, No. 4.
2 vols. Oblong small folio (23.5 x 36.8 cm and 25.4 x 39.4 cm). 66 pen-and-ink, watercolour and gouache drawings of horses, mostly highlighted with silver and gold (one folding), all signed, each within a black ruled border, most trimmed and mounted onto larger sheets at a period date. Early marbled paper spines. Housed in an early calf-backed marbled paper covered faux-book box, metal clasps. Unique illustrated manuscript trade catalogue, with each image depicting a horse in elaborate carriage tack. The drawings were executed by Michael Fölsch himself, one of the foremost Viennese makers and sellers of luxury tack in the early 19th century, to show prospective clients possible designs for their carriage horses. Every single drawing is signed by the artist: Fölsch's talent for draughtsmanship and colouring was hitherto unknown and is remarkable for a leather craftsman who probably never received training as a painter. The breadth and complexity of the designs, and the use of gold and silver, is impressive, underlining the fact that such bespoke equipment was intended for the wealthy elite. - Provenance: first in the equestrian library of the Imperial stablemaster Franz Wenzel Schleichart von Wiesenthal (engraved bookplate on verso of box), who came from a great dynasty of stablemasters and horsebreakers that included his father as well as his two younger brothers Anton Philipp and Johann Joseph; latterly in the collection of Franz Josef II, Fürst von und zu Liechtenstein (1906-89, armorial bookplate).
Small 4to. 3 vols. (2), 300 pp. (2), 300 pp. 316 pp. Near-contemporary half calf over green papered boards with gilt spines. Extremely rare, entirely complete run of this journal, praised by Guérmard as a "truly scientific review" and hailed by Glass and Roper as the first periodical published in the "Arab world". The 916 pages of these various issues appeared between 1798 and 21 March 1801: first every 10 days, then monthly for the second volume, and quarterly for the third. - The journal has great interest for marking the beginning of printing in Egypt: "The expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte to Egypt from 1798 until 1801 was a prelude to modernity. It was to change permanently the traditional Arab world [...] The French brought Arabic typography to Egypt [...] For, leaving aside the Hebrew printing presses in Egypt of the 16th to the 18th centuries, until this date announcements and news adressed to Arabs there, as well as in other parts of the Arab-Islamic world, had been spread only in hand-writing or orally, by criers, preachers or storytellers [...] The periodical [...] 'La Décade Egyptienne' [was one of] the first press productions of Egypt" (D. Glass and G. Roper, cf. below). - The journal took its name from the "Décade philosophique", the publication of the Institut National's Section des Sciences morales et politiques, and contains "soit le texte intégral, soit le texte intégral, soit des extraits d'un grand nombre de mémoires ou rapports présentés au premier Institut d'Égypte par des membres de l'expédition, faisant pour la plupart partie de la Commission des sciences et arts. On y trouve également des observations faites par des médicins placés sous les ordres de Desgenettes. Celui-ci dirigea d'ailleurs la publication après le départ de Tallien" (de Meulenaere). At the time of the French capitulation, the first 24 pages of a fourth volume were in the press, but they were never distributed, and the only copy of these sheets remains in the Library of the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels (cf. ibid.). - First and last volume show traces of worming, occasionally touching the text, with additional brownstains in the lower corner of vol. 3 near the end. Bound in the mid-19th century for Gaillardot Bey, with his handwritten ownership "Ch. Gaillardot" on the half-title of the first volume. D. Charles Gaillardot (1814-83) served as one of the two vice-presidents of the Egyptian Institute in 1881. A professor of natural history at the National School of Medicine in Cairo founded by Antoine Clot Bey, for 20 years head physician at the military hospital and finally director of the Cairo medical school, he had created in the Egyptian capital a "Musée Bonaparte" of his personal collections, comprising books, engravings, weapons, and decorative items - keepsakes of the French Expedition to Egypt, today dispersed. Later in the collection of the writer André Maurois (1885-1967) with his engraved bookplate to pastedown. D. Glass/G. Roper, Arabic Book and Newspaper Printing in the Arab World, in: Middle Eastern Languages and the Print Revolution (Gutenberg Museum Mainz 2002), pp. 177-216, at pp. 182 & 207 ("scientific magazine [... first periodical] of the 'Arab world'"). Maunier, Bibliogr. économique, juridique, et sociale de l'Égypte moderne, p. XXIV, no. 2. De Meulenaere, Bibliogr. raisonnée des témoignages de l'Expédition de l'Égypte, p. 57. Not in Blackmer or Atabey.
8vo (220 x 150 mm). 210 volumes in 212, comprising a complete run of the first series (vols. 1-100) and second series, part 1 (vols. 1-110). Illustrated. Original green and blue cloth, spines gilt, with giltstamped motif of the ship "Victoria" on the upper covers. A primary reference work on the history of travel and exploration, including the principal accounts of the great voyages to the Middle East. This is a complete run of the first series and a large part of the second series (with its first part complete), dating from 1847 to 1956, of the publications of the Hakluyt Society. Early volumes of interest to the student of the exploration of the Muslim world, but also of the world's exploration by Muslims, include the travels of Abd-er-Razzak (India in the 15th Century, vol. 22, 1857), the travels of Ludovico de Varthema in Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Arabia Felix (vol. 32, 1863), and the History of the Imâms and Seyyids of 'Omân by Salîl-ibn-Razîk (vol. 44, 1871, providing the first indigenous account of the history of Oman in English), as well as the travels to Tana and Persia, by Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini (with a Narrative of Italian Travels in Persia in the 15th and 16th Centuries, vols. 49a and 49b, 1873). The "Commentarios" of Afonso de Albuquerque, the first European to enter the Arabian Gulf, are present in a careful edition from 1875ff. (vols. 53, 55, 62, and 69), while the early 15th century narrative of the "Bondage and Travels of Johann Schiltberger, a Native of Bavaria, in Europe, Asia, and Africa" is the first account by a western Christian to state the true burial place of Muhammad, at Medina. Volumes 72 and 73 (1886) contain accounts of early voyages and travels to Persia, while vols. 84 and 85 (1892) offer the famous "Travels of Pietro della Valle in India". Volume 87 (1893) is a collection of "Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant"; vols. 92 and 93 (1896) constitute the famous description of Africa by Al-Hassan Ibn-Mohammed Al-Wezaz Al-Fasi, also known as Leo Africanus. In the second series, vol. 9 (1901) gives the "Travels of Pedro Teixeira, with his 'Kings of Harmuz', and Extracts from his 'Kings of Persia'"; vol. 16 (1905) is the journal of John Jourdain, 1608-17, describing his experiences in Arabia; John Fryer's "New Account of East India and Persia" (covering his travels made in 1672-81) is given in vols. 19, 20 and 39 (1909-15). Ibn Batuta's great travels are contained in vol. 41 (1916) and 110 (1956), while the itinerary of Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese official in India from 1500 to 1516 (vols. 44 & 49, 1918-21), includes accounts of Mecca and Medina, the ports of Jeddah and Aden, the Arab kingdom of Hormuz, and the islands in the Arabian Gulf (with reference to pearl-diving). The 1496 pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff to Syria, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, and Turkey is given in vol. 94 (1946), while the following volume recounts the travels of the Abbé Carré in Syria, Iraq and the Gulf region, 1672 to 1674 (1947). - Founded in London in 1846, the aim of the still-thriving Hakluyt Society is to "advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of primary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material". For 170 years the society has published an annual or bi-annual volume of original accounts of such voyages. Their historically significant texts and translations, often appearing in print for the first time, are fully annotated, well illustrated with maps and plates, and conform to the highest standards of scholarship. As such they often represent the last word on the material they embrace, and are widely valued by historians and geographers throughout the world. Full complete sets of the publication are only held in institutional libraries, and this is the largest run to have appeared in the trade in over 40 years. - Some spines and covers chipped or repaired; library marks on spine. Provenance: The Western Reserve Historical Society Library (bookplates).
4to (188 x 254 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 51 ff. Script in bold black sini, 5 lines within red rules, vowel markers in black and corrections in red, surah headers in red, illuminated double-page frontispiece 'Unwan decorated with geometrical and floral designs in gold and colours in a typical Yunnan style of mainly gold on a red ground highlighted with green and blue. 16th century full brown leather with fore-edge flap, prettily ruled and stamped in blind with Islamic and Chinese-influenced designs. Very early Qur'an Juz (one of thirty parts of varying lengths into which the Qur'an is divided) written in 16th century China. - Arab presence in China dates back as far as the first Caliphate: the Prophet's companion Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas is traditionally credited with introducing Islam to China as ambassador in 650. Indeed, many major cities in China, such as Xi'an (or Chang'an, as it was known during the height of the Silk Road) and Beijing, boast a long and rich Muslim history. Qur'an sections written by Chinese Muslims show Chinese influence clearly in both the decoration and the script, which is derived from naskh. Juz' 19 begins with surah 25, al-Furqan (The Criterion), contains in full surah 26, ash-Shu'ara (The Poets), and closes with the beginning of surah 27, an-Naml (The Ant). - The colophon in red script on the recto of the last leaf states that the manuscript was "copied by Shams al-Din ibn Musa al-Sini in the month of Safar of the year 953 AH in the city of Yunnan, one of the Chinese cities which has been honoured and blessed by Islam". - Binding rebacked and spine and endpapers professionally replaced; subtle paper repairs. An excellent example of the Islamic Chinese style of Qur'anic calligraphy and illumination. Provenance: Private UK collection formed in the 1960s and 1970s.
4to (161 x 212 mm). (3), 91 ff. With 13 woodcut hand-coloured illustrations in the text (lacking the 4 double-page engraved plates). Contemporary half calf binding with marbled covers and fore-edge flap. Rare first edition of this illustrated history of the New World in Ottoman Turkish: the first book published in Turkey to contain illustrations, the earliest book about the New World published in the Ottoman Empire, and one of the first titles printed by a Muslim in Turkey. The contemporary colouring of the woodcuts, which depict curious oddities, fantastic creatures and the native people of the New World, lends this specimen a visual appearance very different from that of the rather plain copies in which this book is usually known (14 copies recorded by OCLC). The only similarly embellished copy of the Hind al-Gharbi we could trace is the one held by the Lilly Library. - "Although ascribed in Turkish bibliographies to one Mehmed Ibn Hasan üs-Su'udi, the authorship is uncertain [...] Despite the title, this is not a history of the West Indies. It opens with a general geographical and cosmological discussion, and follows with an account of the discovery of the New World, with considerable fantastic elaboration in the spirit of the more fabulous passages of Abu Hamid and Qazwini. Among the illustrations are depictions of trees whose fruits are in human form, long-snouted horses, mermen at battle with land-dwellers, and other men and beasts of nightmarish aspect" (Watson). - This work, which survives in a number of manuscripts (none as complete as this printed edition), was composed in Istanbul around 1580. After a synthesis of Islamic geographical and cosmographical writings (notably drawing from al-Mas'udi, who is the most frequently cited source, and Ibn al-Wardi, mentioned almost 20 times), the book relates the discovery of the New World. It is this Chapter 3, which comprises the final two thirds of the text, in which the unidentified author describes the explorations and discoveries by Columbus, Balboa, Magellan, Cortés and Pizarro. As Goodrich's study of the book's sources shows, this section is derived directly from Italian editions of 16th century texts, particularly works by López de Gómara, Peter Martyr, Agustín de Zárate, and Oviedo, which the author excerpted, rearranged, and translated into Turkish. Complete copies are rare: the book was printed in an edition of only 500 copies, many of which were subsequently defaced or destroyed for contravening the Islamic dictum against representing living things. - The "Tarikh-i Hind-i gharbi" is only the fourth book printed in the Arabic alphabet in the Ottoman Empire, produced by Ibraham Müteferrika, an Hungarian convert to Islam who believed he could help arrest the decline of the Empire through his printing press. He established his shop in 1729 in the palace of the Grand Vizier Ibrahim Pasha and was granted a license to print all but religious works (which remained the province of scribes). - A few corners or edges clipped or trimmed, remargined by an early collector. Lacks the engraved maps and astronomical chart present in some copies. Old inscription in Arabic (dated 1341 H) and ownership of the French diplomat Louis Lagarde (dated 1923 CE) to front flyleaf. John Carter Brown 463. Toderini III, p. 41, no. IV. Karatay 250. Sabin 94396. William J. Watson, "Ibrahim Müteferrika and Turkish Incunabula," in: Journal of the American Oriental Society 88, no. 3 (1968), pp. 435-441, no. 4. Özege 19828. OCLC 416474553. Cf. T. D. Goodrich, The Ottoman Turks and the New World (Wiesbaden 1990).
4to (170 x 240 mm). Persian manuscript on polished paper. 137 (instead of 143) ff. (lacking ff. 97-102) in elegant black nasta'liq script, 14 lines, 2 columns. With an illuminated shamsa on fol. 1r (specifying the name of the sponsor Khawaja Nasir as well as the place and date of production) and an illuminated 'unwan headpiece on fol. 1v. Light brown full morocco with blindstamped borders, corners and central ornaments. An elegantly executed Eastern Persian manuscript that chronicles the epic life and victories of one of history's most famous emperors and military leaders, Timur Leng (Tamerlane), from his birth near Samarqand in modern-day Uzbekistan in 1336. "Certainly the most famous of Hatefi’s poems [... The work] extols Timur’s deeds in accordance with the main works of Timurid historiography such as Sharaf-al-Din Yazdi's Zafar-nama [...] Hatefi’s Timur-nama became a model for subsequent poems. It certainly introduced a new genre which was developed further by Hatefi himself [...] Written in 1498, the Timur-nama has been published twice in India (1869, 1958)" (Encyclopaedia Iranica XII, 55-57). - Abdallah Hatefi (Hatifi) was the nephew of 'Abd-al-Rahman Jami, one of the greatest Persian poets and composers of Sufi mystical works. The Timur-nama, modeled after Nizami's "Iskandar-nama", appears to be his only completed work. The oldest extant copy was completed the year after Hatifi's death, 927 H (1521 CE), and was stored in the India Office Library. - Descended from the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan, Timur participated in various military campaigns from a young age, and his victories quickly made him known as a highly skilled military leader. After a decade of internal political wrangling, he became ruler of the Timurid Empire in 1369. For the next 35 years, until his death in 1405, Timur continued to lead a number of great expeditions and wars; his conquests stretched as far west as Baghdad and the Black Sea, the shores of the Arabian Gulf, and far into modern Afghanistan and northwestern India; he took Herat, where this manuscript is written, in 1381. Timur began military campaigns against the Ottoman ruler Bayezid I and the Mamluks in Syria, as well as expeditions to Armenia and Georgia. His final campaign was in the winter of 1404, but he was stricken with fever and plague and died in February of the following year. His line continued through the glory of the Timurid period under his direct descendants, including Babur (1483-1531), the famous founder of the Mughal dynasty in India, who continued to rule until 1857. - An beautiful manuscript containing an illuminated headpiece of the greatest refinement; the illuminated border of the shamsah on fol. 1r. is a hallmark of Herati work. Surrounding the shamsa are several stamped waqf seals and various inscriptions by previous owners; fol. 140v has an inscription by Muhammad Taqi Qarakuzlu, dated 1237 H (1821 CE). - Provenance: Arts of the Islamic World, Sotheby's, 5 April 2006, lot 30. Sam Fogg, 2009.
4to (146 x 201 mm). (6), 164 ff. With woodcut border surrounding title-page and woodcut initials throughout. 19th century full calf ruled in blind, bound for the Inner Temple Library, London, with two morocco spine labels. All edges red. First English edition of one of the most important historical works of the first great age of discovery, "very rare" (Hill). The author mentions several journeys to the "Moores of Arabia" (27r), such as one in 1487 "to Toro, which is a place that hath his harbour in the Straights of the red Sea in the Coast of Arabia", and other places "in the selfe same Straightes of the Redde Sea" (2v), the ships also passing by "Ormuse" (Hormuz, 3r) on their return journey from India to Cairo. - Most of the "Historie" is devoted to the great Portuguese thrust into Asia in the early 16th century, chronicling their epic expansion to India, the East Indies, and China between 1497 and 1505. Castanheda himself spent some two decades in the Portuguese colonies in the East, and so was well equipped to write this account. It is one of the primary sources for the early Portuguese trading empire, a model that the British were beginning to emulate at the time of publication. This work is equally important, however, for its American content, being the first to describe in detail the voyage of Cabral and his discovery of Brazil in 1500, while on his way out to the East Indies. Cabral's landing is the first recorded there, recounted in Chapters 29-31 of the present work. "A most interesting and rare book" (Sabin). - Originally published at Coimbra in 1551, the book was translated by "Nicholas Lichefield" (probably Thomas Nicholas, the well-known translator of the Tudor era). This edition is appropriately dedicated to Sir Francis Drake. - Binding lightly rubbed in places, but still very presentable. A few near-contemporary annotations and manicules. Upper corner of title-page professionally repaired. Front pastedown shows engraved armorial bookplate (ca. 1700) of the barrister-at-law Herbert Jacob of St Stephen's (Hackington) in Canterbury, who bequeathed his books to the Inner Temple, London. Subsequently removed from the Inner Temple Library, now bearing their winged-horse crest in gilt on upper cover, engraved bookplate on pastedown and two different ink stamps to title-page and variously throughout. Offered by Hordern House, Sydney, in 1998 and sold to the San Francisco collector Bruce McKinney; the lower pastedown shows the bookplate of his 2009 sale. A scarce title with good provenance, in an appealing modern binding. Alden/Landis 582/54. Hill 1035. Borba de Moraes 166f. Palau IV, 262. Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance 274-279. STC 16806. Sabin 11391. Streeter Sale 26. Not in Church.
4to. (6), 96 ff. With a woodcut initial coloured in red and green and several diagrams. Rubricated throughout. - (Bound after) II: Aristotle. Meteorologia. (Nuremberg, Friedrich Peypus, 11 Nov. 1512). 94, (6) ff. (final blank). With 8 large woodcuts in the text, some with touches of contemporary colour. Rubricated throughout. - (Bound with) III: Abraham ben 'Ezra (Aben Ezra, Avenares). In re iudiciali opera. (Venice, Petrus Liechtenstein, 1507). 96 ff. (f. 92 blank). Rubricated throughout, some initials coloured green. Contemporary wooden boards on three raised double bands with leather spine. Two brass clasps (repaired). I: Editio princeps of this "work composed in Arabic probably exactly in the form in which it is preserved in Latin, typical of the encyclopaedic period but limited [...] to certain early sources" (Carmody), uniting the Judaic and Islamic astrological traditions. The form, arranged in twelve parts according to each house, is based on the doctrines of Sahl al-Tustari. The various tracts are constructed from chapters compiled systematically from such writers as Mâshâ'allâh (including the first printing of 'De electionibus') and al-Kindi. The crucial factor that they were translated intact in their present form from Arabic "is apparent in the unified Latin style and terminology" (ibid.). The collection includes a number of quotations attributed to Ptolemy; the rare mention of "Abuali" refers perhaps to Abu 'Ali al-Khayyâj. - "Masha'allah, [a Jew from Basra,] was one of those early 'Abbasid astrologers who introduced the Sassanian version of the predictive art to the Arabs; he was particularly indebted to the Pahlavi translation of Dorotheus of Sidon and to the 'Zik i Shahriyaran', or Royal Astronomical Tables, issued under the patronage of Khusrau Anushirwan in 556. He was also acquainted with some Greek material (perhaps through Arabic versions of Syriac texts) and would have acquired some knowledge of Indian science, both through the Pahlavi texts that he read and through such Indian scientists as the teacher of al-Fazari and Kanaka, who visited the courts of al-Mansur and Harun al-Rashid. It is during al-Mansur's reign that Masha'allah's name first appears: he participated in the astrological deliberations that led to the decision to found Bagdad [...] Masha'allah wrote on virtually every aspect of astrology [...] ['De electionibus'], which quotes Dorotheus, is ascribed to Masha'allah and Ptolemy but is probably by neither" (DSB IX, 159 ff.). - Extremely rare. A very clean copy with only an insignificant inkstain in the lower margin of ff. 12v and 13r and tiny traces of worming in the upper margin of the final two leaves. A few contemporary handwritten marginalia; f. 80v has a contemporary handwritten ownership of Wigand, Baron Redwitz (1476-56), bishop of Bamberg, who as a young man had travelled to Palestine and is remembered as a conservative but not fanatical Catholic cleric during the tumultuous years of the Reformation. - Bound with this work in the same appealing Renaissance volume are two other rare, thematically related contemporary treatises. - II: Aristotle's "Meteorology", long known in the West only through a Latin translation based on the Arabic version "al-'Athar al-`Ulwiyyah". This is the very rare illustrated first edition of Faber's expanded translation, including an extensive commentary by Johannes Cochlaeus, who also mentions the recently-discovered American continent ("Nova illa Americi terra", f. 62v). Comprising the first three of Aristotle's four books (on the heavens, water, and wind), it also constitutes "one of the main sources of medieval geology" (Stillwell, Awakening 577). "Cochlaeus's discussion of the relationship between motion and heat appears quite modern" (cf. Spahn). The woodcuts, coloured in earth tones or simply accented by the rubricator, show spheres as well as light and cloud phenomena; a large woodcut (f. 60v) shows the climate zones of the ancient world. - A single, tiny wormhole in the blank lower margin throughout; another small wormhole in the first two leaves (repaired in A1, insignificant loss to a few letters in A2). A clean and wide-margined copy. - III: The first collected edition of ten astrological treatises by the 12th-century Jewish mathematician and astronomer Ibn Ezra from Tudela in Spain. During his lifetime the town was under the Muslim rule of the emirs of Zaragoza; later he lived in Muslim Andalusia. "Ibn Ezra disseminated rationalistic and scientific Arabic learning in France, England and ltaly [... He] wrote a number of astrological works that were very popular [...] all of them appeared in Latin in 1507. They are rich in original ideas and in the history of scientific subjects" (DSB). - Contemporary marginalia in red, green, and brown ink throughout. Some insignificant browning. The well-preserved binding shows a hunting scene blindstamped into the leather. A fine assembly of important natural scientific works: published by Christian editors and printers in the early Renaissance, they bring together the Muslim and Jewish traditions that were the driving forces behind mediaeval science. I: Edit 16, CNCE 63196. BM-STC ltalian 424. Houzeau/Lancaster 751 ("volume tres rare"). DSB IX, 162. Carmody p. 112. Not in Adams, Mortimer, Essling, Stillwell, Honeyman. - II: VD 16, L 959. Cranz/Schmitt 13. Hoffmann I, 321. Schweiger I, 60. IA 107.806. Alden/Landwehr 512/1. Zinner 953. Brüggemann/Brunken 29. Spahn, Cochläus, p. 16. - III: Edit 16, CNCE 35576. IA 100.150. Adams A 38. Proctor-Is. 12998. Stillwell, Awakening 2. Houzeau/Lancaster 3927 ("rare"). Thorndike II, 917 & 927. DSB IV, 502.
Folio (422 x 528 cm). Lithogr. t. p. and 60 lithogr. plates, all in original hand colour, captions often raised in gilt. With 10 leaves of letterpress text. 10 instalments in the original printed wrappers as issued. Stored in contemporary green half calf with giltstamped spine and cover label. Ties. - (Includes): Die Uebergangsländer von Asien und Afrika, begreifend: Arabien nebst Mesopotamien und Syrien und das Nilgebiet. Munich, C. Wenng, 1845. Engraved map with contemporary border colour. 640 x 544 mm. Scale 1:7,000,000. Only edition of the rare variant with all the plates and in their splendid original colour: the personal copy of Duke Maximilian in Bavaria. "Published in ten parts. The plates show costume of the period and also that of earlier times, taken from paintings" (Hiler). The picturesque views, which include Cairo, Alexandria, Jerusalem, La Valletta, Luxor, and Thebes, genre scenes and landscapes, are all framed within a decorative border and arranged as a small painting. The Nuremberg artist Mayr, especially well-known for his depictions of battles scenes and horses, was personal painter to Duke Maximilian, whom he accompanied on his 1838 journey of the Orient. The group had departed from Munich on January 20 with a small entourage, travelling via Venice, Korfu, Patras, Athens, Alexandria, and Cairo to the Holy Land. They returned to Munich after eight months on 17 September 1838; the following year, Maximilian was made honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences. - Some foxing to letterpress explanatory text, plates beautifully preserved with only the backing paper showing occasional duststaining. From the library of Duke Maximilian at Tegernsee Castle, retaining the original shelfmark label on the spine. - Includes the extremely rare map of the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East which was published only in 1845, at the instigation of the naturalist Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert (1780-1860) and the geologist Joseph von Russegger (1802-63), to satisfy this frequently noted lack in Mayr's production (some foxing, but also finely preserved). Ibrahim-Hilmy II, 26. Gay 90 (only 36 plates). Lipperheide Ma 22 (= 1589). Hiler 578. Tobler 161. Graesse IV, 457. Engelmann 124. Kainbacher 265 ("a rarity"). Thieme/Becker XXIV, 477. Nagler VIII, 498f. ("highly memorable drawings"). ADB XXI, 139ff. Not in Blackmer or Abbey (Travel). Not in Colas.
3 parts in 3 folio volumes (302 x 205 mm). (4), 34, 436 ff. 30, 248 ff. 6, 34, 455 (not 456) ff. With a total of 51 engravings in the text (7 full-page) and 12 double-page maps and plans (2 full-page). 20th-c. full brown morocco, double-gilt fillet on the covers, spine ribbed and decorated with gilt fleurons, mottled edges. Stored in custom-made calf-edged slipcases. Perfectly complete copy of this superb collection of travels, composed of the first edition of the 3rd part and the second edition of the 1st and 2nd part. The second edition, widely enlarged, of the 1st part, is the first and only one to present the 3 double-page maps representing Africa and India that had not been printed in the first edition of 1550, and which would not be reprinted in the 3rd edition of 1563 since the wood plates of these 3 maps had been destroyed in the fire that ravaged Giunti's workshop in 1557. - "This work, which served as a model to Hakluyt, was the first systematical collection of voyages that had so far appeared [...] It [...] is carefully and intelligently done" (Cox). "All authors are unanimous of their praise of Ramusio's choice of published narratives. Locke, the English philosopher, states that it is 'the most perfect work of that nature in any language'. Harrisse writes, 'The publication of Ramusio's "Raccolta" may be said to open an era in the literary history of Voyage and Navigation. Instead of accounts carelessly copied and translated from previous collections, perpetuating errors and anachronisms, we find in this valuable work original narratives which betray the hand of a scholar of great critical acumen'" (Borba de M.). The first volume, mainly dedicated to Africa and South Asia, happily includes several travel reports of the utmost importance for the exploration of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf region. Lodovico Varthema's travel report, famous for detailing the first recorded visit of a Westerner to Mecca, indeed the first western encounter with the Arab world, contains accounts of the holy cities of as well as of the port of Jeddah, information on Bedouin life and costume, etc. (ff. 162-166). - The account of Vasco da Gama's voyage to India is comparable in importance only to Columbus’s in the west, as it “opened the way for the maritime invasion of the East by Europe” (PMM 42). Da Gama’s pioneering sea voyage ranks amongst the greatest historic events of the second millennium and as “one of the defining moments in the history of exploration” (BBC History, online). It is also considered the turning point in the political history of the Arabian Gulf region, followed as it was by a prolonged period of east-west commerce, conquest and conflict. Critically, the excerpt here published includes details on "una isola [i. e., Julfar] verso il colfo Persico dove altro non si fa che pescar perle" (I, f. 132). - Duarte Barbosa's report includes accounts of Mecca and Medina (f. 323), the ports of Jeddah (ibid.) and Aden (f. 324), the Arab kingdom of Hormuz (ff. 324-327), Julfar and the islands in the Arabian Gulf (f. 325, with reference to pearl-diving), etc. Also, we find the very early and highly influential, albeit imprecise data on the Kuwait region: place names such as Lorom, Gostaque, Bacido, Conga, Menahaon (p. 325) etc. which Slot discusses at some length: "Much of the toponymic information in the Kuwait region on the maps from the Gastaldi group is based on an erroneous interpretation of Duarte Barbosa's text. From this text come the strange names of places in the area of Kuwait like Costaqui (Kuhistaq) which should in fact be placed on the other side of the Gulf [...] Loron [...] might be an error for the Karun River which is on the Persian side just east of the Shatt al-Arab. Then follows inside the inlet of the Gulf of Kuwait the name Manahon. Then follows around this 'Gulf of Kuwait' three names which are cased by erroneous plotting [...]: Congo (Bandar Kong), Costaqui (Kuhistaq) and Bacido (Basaidu) with the offshore island of Queximi (Qism). These are names taken from [...] Duarte Barbosa's book and erroneously plotted on this coast" (Origins of Kuwait, p. 15). - The volume also includes a set of three woodcut maps by Gastaldi: the first showing Africa, the second showing the Indian subcontinent, the Strait of Hormuz, the Eastern half of the Gulf, and the Indian Ocean, while the third shows Southeast Asia and the East Indies. These were a great advance on earlier maps, including even Gastaldi's own, taking into account new information provided by Portuguese explorers. Many of the topographic names in the Gulf region derive from the forms used by these navigators and can be identified, sometimes tentatively, from their place on the first two of these maps and from the early accounts of the voyages: "Cor. Dulfar" (Dhofar), the island "Macira" (Masirah), "C. Resalgate" (Ras al Had?), "Galatia" (the ancient site Qalhat), "Mazcate" (Muscat), the island "Quexumo" (Qeshm), "Ormus" (Hormuz), and there is even an unlabelled city close to the present-day Abu Dhabi. - Occasional handwritten ink notes. Waterstain on the lower part of vol. 2, ff. 31-35; some browned leaves; otherwise fine, a washed copy. Provenance: Professor Eva G. R. Taylor (1879-1966), historian of science and the first woman to hold an academic chair of geography in the UK, presented to Birkbeck College, University of London (bookplate) and sold through Sotheby's in 1990. Sabin 67731, 67737, 67740. Harrisse 304. Church 99. Borba de Moraes² 698f. Bosch 46. Cox I, 28. Cordier, BS 1939. Fumagalli (Bibl. Etiopica) 83 (note). Gay 258. Adams R 135, 137, 140. Brunet IV, 1100f. Slot, The Origins of Kuwait (1998), p. 15 & 187.
895 x 945 mm. Polyconic projection, constant ratio linear horizontal scale 1:4,000,000. Blue-line print. Framed. The only known example: a highly detailed map of the Arabian Peninsula, published by the "Arabian American Oil Co." in March 1942, two years before the company was formally so renamed, and the first effort to produce a large-scale map of the entire Peninsula that satisfied modern technical needs. Clearly produced in a very limited edition for internal use at the crucial, transitional moment in Arabian oil exploration, this is the earliest known map to use the name that still survives in "Saudi Aramco", issued at a time when the company was still officially Standard Oil of California. - The legend identifies railways, primary and secondary roads as well as "explorers' routes", oil pipelines, intermittent streams, airports, towns, "Arab wells", oases, "sand areas", "sabkhas", and "marsh". The Maidan-i-Naftun and Naft Safid oilfields in Iran (and the pipelines that link them to the A.I.O.C. Refinery at Abadan) are illustrated, as are the Kirkuk oilfield and the pipelines running from there to Haifa and Tripoli. Dammam and Dhahran, the sites of the first commercial oil wells in Saudi Arabia, also feature on the map. Aside from that, however, there is no illustrated oil development in the Middle East: the map effectively illustrates the blank slate that was Arabian oil exploration in the early 1940s. On the coast of what was then Trucial Oman, Sharjah, Dubai (with airfield) and Abu Dhabi are identified; the areas to the southwest of Abu Dhabi City are labelled "Sabkha es Salmiyah" and "Taff". Shows adjoining areas from the Bosporus to Somaliland and the USSR. - The "compiler and tracer" (cartographer and draughtsman) is identified as the Aramco engineer G. S. Sheets; separate fields to indicate "checked by" and "revisions" remain blank. Sheets had joined Aramco's predecessor, the California Arabian Standard Oil Company, in 1939 and immediately began work in Dhahran as a geological draftsman in the Production (Exploration) department. Upon his return to the U.S. he prepared several geological maps including the present one and acted as liaison with the Army Map Service. In 1942 he became attached as a civilian to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Army Map Service, but he returned to Arabia in 1944 and in 1955 became staff assistant to the director of Concession Affairs. - In excellent state of preservation. Extremely rare: OCLC locates only two examples, both of which appear to be photocopies (Library of Congress and American University of Beirut). While the large 1963 map of Arabia that succeeded this, also produced by Aramco geologists, has occasionally appeared in the trade, no other original of this early map could be traced in libraries or in auction or trade records. A unique survival. OCLC 1048657705.
4to (165 x 227 mm). Arabic manuscript on paper. 44 pp. (22 ff.) with 5 full-page colour illustrations (one double-page-sized), all illustrated leaves consisting of two folios pasted together for reinforcement. 17 lines of text, per extensum, within green and double red rules, written in Maghribi style (with diacritic under the letter 'fa') in black, red and green ink; introductory first page written in a different hand in brown ink. 19th century Levantine binding in full red morocco with fore-edge flap, stamped in blind with rules, fleurons and ornamental oval medallions to both covers. Pioneering Abbasid-era study of horsemanship and horse care: the work's only known manuscript in Europe, constituting the long-lost first volume of the set now in the National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco. - Titled "Kitab al-Furusiyah" (the "Book of Riding" or "Book of Horses", often referred to as the "Book of Farriery") or, in full, "Kitab fi al-'inayahbi al-khayl wa-sa'ir dawab al-rukub" ("On the care of horses and all other riding animals"), this encyclopedia of horse care was completed ca. 1200 CE. Ahmad ibn al-Ahnaf is known also to have composed a "Kitab al-Baytara" (Book of Veterinary Science) - possibly simply the same work by a different title, although some Arabic sources mention the titles separately. Ahmad was one of the earliest authors to write on the care of horses and possibly the first ever to include illustrations. - The present manuscript comprises the beginning of the work from chapter 1 to the first half of chapter 4. The introduction announces a total of 30 chapters, but no complete copy is known: the most extensive manuscript extant has 29 chapters, while specimens with 26 chapters are more common. As the later chapters are very short, these first four chapters make up more than a quarter of the entire work. They discuss, individually: 1) the study of milk teeth and permanent teeth; 2) the physical appearance and general characteristics of the horse, donkey, and mule; 3) the functions of the external parts of the body; 4) equestrianism and the various ways of mounting a horse. - The present volume completes the incomplete three-volume set in Rabat's National Library of the Kingdom of Morocco, which begins with the fifth chapter and fully agrees with the present manuscript in script, page layout, spelling and size (MS 6126, described in the "Chevaux et cavaliers arabes" exhibition catalogue, see reference below). The illustrations in the manuscript in the Royal Library, showing the identical almond-shaped horse eyes and characteristically rounded hooves, are clearly by the same artist, as well. The Rabat MS is dated Dhu'l-Hijja 1126 H (December 1714 CE) and thus provides the date for the volume at hand, although the style of penmanship would easily agree with a 17th century dating. - Upper corners of the first two leaves professionally restored with very little text loss. Some fingerstains and dust-soiling throughout, more pronounced in first and last page, suggesting that the manuscript probably had no binding before the 19th century. Frequent edge tears, confined to margins. Pigments somewhat chipped in the final, double-page-spread illustration. Altogether a beautiful specimen of an Arabic manuscript on equestrianism, and like all such manuscripts of the greatest rarity. Cf. Digard, Chevaux et cavaliers arabes dans les arts d'Orient et d'Occident: exposition présentée à l'Institut du monde arabe (Paris, 2002), pp. 79, 83 & 126 (no. 68).
74 catalogued items, comprising 88 volumes of printed books. In Arabic, English, French, German, Italian, Latin, Swedish, and Syriac. A highly important ensemble of books on early Islamic medicine and science, assembled by one of the most renowned medical research institutes of its age, comprising not only rare historical and bibliographical studies, but also many first printed editions of crucial scientific texts in Arabic, frequently in the form of doctoral theses that remain almost impossible to find in libraries. Several titles, such as Steinschneider's "Introduction to the Arabic Literature of the Jews" (published in no more than 20 copies, "for private circulation" only), have not been seen on the market in decades, making the present offering a unique opportunity to acquire some of the most elusive relevant literature published in the late 19th and early 20th century. - Established in 1906, the Karl Sudhoff Institute in Leipzig was the first institute for the study of the history of medicine established worldwide. Its founder Karl Sudhoff (1853-1938) is regarded as one of the 20th century's foremost historians of medicine. A practicing physician for most of his life, Sudhoff published more than four hundred articles as well as many monographs, edited standard works and editions of original manuscripts. He was personally involved in building the institute's library and thus in assembling the present collection. - The 88 volumes offered here include numerous relevant issues of scholarly journals as well as journal articles. They often unite within a single volume several items published separately but forming a clear thematic unit, sometimes bringing together between two covers material that appeared at various times and in several places but was intended by the author to be considered as a whole. Deaccessioned from the Department of the History of Medicine of the University of Leipzig, most books bear the usual shelfmarks and stamps, but are otherwise in fine condition. - Catalogue available upon request.
Five oblong albums (445 x 315 mm), consecutively numbered with 847 vintage albumen prints (various formats, 115 x 85 to 280 x 205 mm) laid down and captioned on thick cream card. Contemporary red half sheepskin, title and year stamped in gilt lettering to front covers of each volume. Spine and edges ruled in gilt, silk-watered endpapers, album sheets edged in gilt. An exceptional trove of early exploration and travel photographs, documenting a two-year tour around the coast of Africa and Yemen, through the Gulf from Muscat to Bahrein, then on by the Arabian Sea to Karachi and finally back to Syria and Jerusalem. The collection is preserved in its original massive oblong albums with each of the partly large-format photographs meticulously captioned in the traveller's own hand. Numerous photographs of himself are included within the albums and witness the transformation of a well-groomed English gentleman at the beginning of the tour in East Africa, in early 1900 ("being carried to small boat at Majunga"), into a bearded explorer camping with the Bedouins in 1901(showing him in front of "My camp at El Bagdadi on the Euphrates"). - The unidentified traveller was hosted by local dignitaries and had an obvious special interest in architecture and archeological excavations. His photographs provide extraordinary insights into the social and cultural life of the British protectorates he visited. Indeed, his journey to the Gulf, documented here, pre-dates Hermann Burchardt's 1903/04 expedition, famed for providing the first visual records of many places in the region, and the numerous previously unrecorded photographs of Muscat, Bahrein and other places in the Gulf contained in the present albums are therefore a particularly important find. - Apart from the views of Muscat castle and port there are highly unusual snapshots of street life both outside and within Muscat's city walls, a stunning double portrait of "Men with Hawks belonging to the son of the Sheikh of Bahrein", a view of Bahrein harbour, captioned the "Head Quarters of Pearl Fishing", the Bahrein Post Office, the market in Bandar Abbas, the Quarantine Station at Basra, as well as photos of horse dealers, women selling salt or just date palms. The 1901 photograph of the Arch of Ctesiphon is captioned "Left wing fell in April 1887 the rest will probably soon follow", also recording height and length of the remaining structure, as well as the width of the entrance. A photo of the "British Residents Wife's Bay Arabian" documents the rare occasion of a "Ladies' nomination Race", also recording the names of the winners of this race held in Bagdad. "Dr. Robert Koldewey from the German expedition" is met and photographed in Babylon at the Temple of the Venus. Visits to several ships at sea are documented in photos of the vessels themselves, as well as by group portraits of their captains and crews on board. A remarkable photograph shows the warship Persepolis returning from its campaign under Daria Begi against the shores of the Trucial States. - Bindings a little rubbed, boards partly stained, some of the album leaves affected by minor waterstaining and some foxing. Photographs mostly unfaded with good, strong contrast and in excellent condition throughout. An extraordinary record and a unique collection.
A total of 382 topographic maps, colour-printed, ca. 58 x 45 cm. Constant ratio linear horizontal scale. In Russian (Cyrillic). Most of the Soviet Union's 1:200,000 General Staff map quadrangles showing the Arabian Peninsula: from the Russian series of maps produced during the Cold War, based on high-quality satellite imagery, but usually also ground reconnaissance. While there are a few lacunae in the eastern and central part of the Peninsula, mainly concerning Oman and the UAE, and a few Saudi Arabian quadrangles are lacking, most of the area is well-covered. Assembled continuously, the quadrangles would form an enormous map spanning ca. 13 x 11 metres!. - Products of a massive, clandestine cartographic project begun under Stalin and ultimately encompassing the entire globe, the Soviet General Staff maps are today noted for their extreme precision. Indeed, even in post-Soviet times they provide the most reliable mapping for many remoter parts of the world: "Soviet-era military maps were so good that when the United States first invaded Afghanistan in late 2001, American pilots relied on old Russian maps of Afghanistan. For almost a month after the United States began a bombing campaign to help oust the Taliban government, American pilots were guided by Russian maps dating back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s" (Davies/Kent, p. xi). - Although the details of the cartographic programme evolved over the decades, its overall system and plan remained remarkably constant. "The basic quadrangle is the 1:1,000,000 sheet spanning 4° latitude by 6° longitude [...] Each 1:1,000,000 sheet is [...] subdivided into 36 1:200,000 sheets in a six-by-six grid [... They] normally contain on the reverse side a detailed written description of the districts (towns, communications, topography, geology, hydrology, vegetation, and climate) together with a geological sketch map" (ibid., p. 19-21). "Printing such large-format plans in so many colors with near-perfect print registration itself testifies to the skill of the printers in the military map printing factories across the former Soviet Union. The quality of printing reflects the level of training and the reliability of humidity-control equipment and the electricity supply at the time" (ibid., p. 6f.). - The 1:200,000-scale maps are specifically labelled "For Offical Use". Indeed, all General Staff maps de facto constituted closely guarded military material, none of which became available in the West before the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s. - Light traces of folds, occasional wrinkles and a few odd edge flaws, but altogether in excellent condition. Cf. J. Davies / A. J. Kent, The Red Atlas (Chicago/London, 2017).
Folio (ca. 490 x 610 mm). (86 + 88 =) 174 large black-and-white photographs (14 ca. 95 x 120 mm, the rest ca. 250 x 300 mm). Mounted on cardboard leaves on cloth tabs. Handwritten English captions throughout. Bound for the photographer in two monumental full red morocco albums with giltstamped titles to upper covers. All edges gilt. Two monumental albums with photographs from travels undertaken to Bashan, Argob, Moab and Gilead, presently Jordanian and Syrian territories, in the years 1894-95. Mounted on the album leaves are 174 photographs taken by the British officer Algernon Heber-Percy (1845-1911), recording two of his expeditions to the Levant. Most of the photographs show archaeological sites, ancient ruins, structures, Druze and Bedouin villages and the residents of the villages that Heber-Percy visited in the course of his travels. - The first album, entitled "Argob and Bashan", contains 86 photographs of sites that are today in Syrian territory, specifically Trachonitis, Bashan and Jabal al-Druze, which the photographer visited together with his spouse and two sons in 1894. The sites include villages in the Trachonitis region (the Lajat) as well as in the cities of Qanawat, As-Suwayda, Bosra and other cities, and the road from Damascus to Beirut. The album also includes photographs of the region's Druze inhabitants. - The second album, entitled "Moab and Gilead", contains 88 photographs from sites that are today in Jordanian territory, visited by the photographer in 1895, including Beth Ba'al Ma'on, Dhiban, Umm ar-Rasas, Amman, Salt (Al-Salt) and Jerash. The album also includes photographs of the region's Bedouin inhabitants and three photographs showing a travelling circus of trained animals (a monkey, a goat and a bear) encountered by the photographer in the Madaba area. Heber-Percy also published on the expeditions recorded in these photographs: his account of his travels appeared in two books, "A Visit to Bashan and Argob" (London, 1895) and "Moab Ammon and Gilead" (1896), and some of the photographs in the albums were reproduced in these books. - Bound for the owner by Bennion & Horne, Market Drayton (their label to pastedown). Some foxing, mainly confined to flyleaves; occasional slight edge flaws. Bindings slightly scuffed at the extremeties, but in all a finely preserved, impressive set.