Magallane

1788 · ref. 89654 — Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra Hijos y Compañia 1788. Fine. Vargas Ponce and the Córdoba Expedition: The Official Account of the Last Great Spanish Voyage to the Strait of Magellan Viuda de Ibarra Hijos y Compañia Madrid 1788 17.7 x 28.5 cm Relié First edition illustrated with an engraved portrait of Magellan as frontispiece and four folding maps and plans of the Strait of Magellan. Cf. Sabin 16765; Leclerc 1971; Chadenat 552; Palau 352513; Aguilar Piñal VIII 2443. The present copy does not include the separately published appendix issued in 1793 devoted to the supplementary survey carried out by the packet vessels Santa Casilda and Santa Eulalia a supplement only rarely found together with the main work. Modern full brown calf executed in an eighteenth-century style spine with five raised bands gilt in compartments with decorative tools gilt rolls to the spine ends marbled endpapers red edges gilt edge-rolls. An important provenance copy bearing on the title page the ownership signature of Gaston de Rocquemaurel 1804-1878 French naval officer who served as second-in-command to Jules Dumont d'Urville aboard L'Astrolabe during the celebrated scientific expedition to Oceania and the Antarctic seas between 1837 and 1840. This is the official account of the first major Spanish hydrographic expedition devoted to the Strait of Magellan undertaken in 1785-1786 under the command of Captain Antonio de Córdoba y Lasso de la Vega 1740-1811 aboard the frigate Santa María de la Cabeza. Commissioned within the maritime and imperial policy pursued under Charles III and his minister the Count of Floridablanca the expedition sought through systematic hydrographic and astronomical observations to determine whether the Strait offered a safer navigational route to the Pacific than the notoriously hazardous passage around Cape Horn. Although Antonio de Córdoba's name appears prominently on the title page Palau and Aguilar Piñal attribute the editorial composition of the work to José de Vargas Ponce 1760-1821 who is thought to have written the introduction and historical survey of previous explorations of the Strait from Magellan to Bougainville while the derrotero - the practical sailing directions themselves - is attributed to the expedition's lieutenants Dionisio Alcalá Galiano and Alejandro Belmonte based on the observations gathered during the voyage. The work was printed by the Viuda de Ibarra Hijos y Compañía successor to the celebrated press of Joaquín Ibarra widely regarded as the finest Spanish printer of the eighteenth century. Following Ibarra's death in 1785 his widow Manuela Contera continued the business with their children preserving the exceptional typographical standards for which the house was renowned. The provenance lends this copy particular historical significance. A graduate of the École Polytechnique Gaston de Rocquemaurel served as Dumont d'Urville's second-in-command aboard L'Astrolabe. Following the same route through the Strait of Magellan before continuing into Antarctic waters the expedition famously discovered Adélie Land in January 1840. Rocquemaurel's signature thus creates a direct link between two of the most important scientific expeditions ever undertaken in the Strait separated by little more than half a century. An attractive copy uniting the foundational work of Spanish hydrography in the Strait of Magellan with the ownership signature of one of the leading French explorers of the southern oceans in the nineteenth century. Â Viuda de Ibarra, Hijos y Compañia hardcover