Delle navigationi et viaggi

Acquired From: Leen Helmink

Colouring: Uncoloured

Condition: Very Good

Confirmed: 3/10/2024

Date Acquired: 29/12/2020

Description: The present set comprises the following editions: Vol. 1: 1588. Vol. 2: 1583. Vol. 3: 1565.nFor forty-three years, Giovanni Battista Ramusio served as a Venetian civil servant and secretary to the Council of Ten, the governing body of the Venetian Republic. Given Venice's key role in global trade, Ramusio had access to, and was able to gather accounts of major voyages of the time, which he compiled into three volumes titled Delle navigationi et viaggi.nThe first volume, published in 1550, includes information on Africa, India, southern Asia, and the East Indies. It attempts to correct some of Claudius Ptolemy's cartography and features accounts of explorers such as Vasco da Gama, Duarte Barbosa, and Antonio Pigafetta. The third volume, first published in 1556, focuses on discoveries in the Americas, including Christopher Columbuss 1492 voyage, Hernán Cortés in Mexico (with a map of the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan), Francisco Pizarro in Peru, and Jacques Cartiers expeditions along the St. Lawrence River. The publication of the second volume was delayed after the manuscript was destroyed in a fire before reaching the printer. It was eventually published in 1559, two years after Ramusio's death, and covers Russia, the Middle East, and Central Asia.nDelle navigationi et viaggi was translated into several languages and reprinted multiple times: Volume 1 was reissued in 1550, 1554 (with additions), 1563 (with an additional page mentioning Ramusio as author), 1588, 1606, and 1613; Volume 2 in 1559, 1574 (with additions), 1583 (with further additions), and 1606; and Volume 3 in 1556, 1565, and 1606 (with additions). Only once, in 1606, were all three volumes reprinted in the same year.

First published: Ramusio, Giovanni Battista. Delle navigationi et viaggi. Venice: Giovanni Giolito de Ferrari, Vol. 1, 1588; Vol. 2, 1583; Vol. 3,

Mapmaker: Ramusio, Giovanni Battista (1485-1557)

Price: 55,000

Primary Category: Book/Atlas

Purchase Reference: Ledger 2022. Email 11/12/2021

Rarity: R3 Uncommon – dealers can usually obtain a copy

References: George B. Parks, Ramusios Literary History, Studies in Philology 52, no. 2 (1955): 12748, and George B. Parks, The Contents and Sources of Ramusios Navigationi, Bulletin of the New York Public Library 59, no. 6 (1959): 279313.

Sheet size (cm): 31×21

Technique: Book

This state: 1588-1583-1565, Fourth