Vincenzo Maria de S. Caterina da Siena. Il Viaggio all'Indie Orientali. Con le osservationi, e successi net medesimo, i costumi, kiti di varie natione, & reconditissimi arcani de gentili; cavati consomma diligenza da loro scritti, con la descrittione degl'animali quadrupedi, serpenti, ucelli, e piante di quel mondo nuovo, con le loro virtu singolari.

Venice, Apresso Giacomo Zattoni, 1678.

4to. (24), 516, (20) pp. With woodcut printer's device on title page and several woodcut head- and tailpieces and initials. Contemporary limp vellum.

 4.500,00

Second edition of one of the most important 17th-century Italian travel reports of the Middle East and India. Vincenzo Maria (Murchio) was a Carmelite missionary with a keen eye and much interest to record manners, customs, and natural history. Travelling through Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Persia, Arabia before arriving in India, he returned to his homeland via Muscat. His book is far more then an intinerary of the Carmelite mission to India: book I recounts the journey to Malabar, also mentioning the Middle East, Mecca, Arabia, religion and other subjects. Book two is about the Christians of St. Thomas; book three is on political, religious and social life of Malabar. Book IV, probably prepared with the aid of Father Matthew, describes the plants of Malabar and the return trip to Europe. With a description of Goa. "Perhaps the most important of the 17th century Italian travellers" (Atabey).

A good copy with slight staining and soiling.

Literatur

Atabey 1297 (3rd edition). Streit V, 538. Cat. NHSM I, p. 240. Graesse VI, 327. Not in Blackmer or Weber.