Tractato dele pił maravigliose cose e pił notabile che si trovino in le parte del mondo redutte e colte sotto brevita in lo presente compendio del strenuissimo cavalier Ioanne de mandavilla anglico.

MANDEVILLE, Sir John.

Published by Venice Manfredo Bonelli 26 January, 1505

About this Item

8vo; title within decorative woodcut border, 4-line decorative woodcut initial to A2, 2-line initials elsewhere, some toning and soiling, small repair to fore-edge of title, bookplate to front pastedown; later full vellum, gilt lettering to spine on brown morocco title-piece, minor worming to extremities and endpapers; collation: A-EE4; ff. [112]. Rare 16th-century Italian edition of the world's first best-selling travel book. Although largely fictitious, the journeys are based upon travellers' tales extant in the fourteenth century and as such are of considerable interest. Purchas considered Sir John Mandeville to be akin to Marco Polo in terms of importance 'the greatest Asian Traveller that ever the World had' (Pilgrimes III, p65). His travels take the reader through Turkey, Armenia, Persia, Tartary, Arabia, India and China, and gave many Europeans their first taste of the Near and Middle East, as well as the East Indies. Little is known of Mandeville himself, however he claims to be an English Knight who travelled between 1322 and 1356, serving under both the Sultan of Egypt and the Great Khan. Although traditionally attributed to Mandeville, in reality the work was an English version of a text known as Itinerarium, of which the original, ascribed to Jean d'Outremeuse, was probably written in Anglo-Norman French. All pre-1725 editions of Mandeville are scarce, and editions such as this, in a vernacular language, particularly so. We have been able to locate just one other copy, held at the British Library in London. USTC 839970.

Seller Inventory # 112964

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Tractato dele pił maravigliose cose e pił notabile che si trovino in le parte del mondo redutte e colte sotto brevita in lo presente compendio del strenuissimo cavalier Ioanne de mandavilla anglico.
• Publisher: Venice Manfredo Bonelli 26 January
• Publication Date: 1505
• Binding: Hardcover