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Title: Les fameux voyages de Pietro Della Valle, gentil homme Romain, surnommé l'illustre voyageur, avec un denombrement tres-exact des choses les plus curieuses, & les plus remarquables qu'il a veuës dans la Turquie, l'Egypte, la Palestine, la Perse, & les Indes Orientales, & queles autheurs qui en ont oy deuant écrit, n'ont iamis obseruées, le tout ecrit en forme de lettres, addresses au Sieur Schipano son plus intime amy. Four volumes. Paris, Gervais Clovzier, 1664.
Description: . 4to. Pp. (xxiv) including one blank leaf, 404, (ii), 97, 80-84, (29) table, (1); (x), 622, (49) table, (1); (xiv), 460, 553-649, (18) table, (1); (xii), 597, (12) table. With two engraved frontispieces, one engraved plate and four woodcut plates in the text (vol. iv). Numerous engraved initials and head-and-tail pieces. Partly some browning due to paper quality. Title pages and plates are narrowly cut. Title to second part of volume one with some minor loss at outer margin. Contemporary full mottled calf, spines with five raised bands richly decorated in gilt, title labels, rubbed and hinges cracked, spine ends worn. Volume one in a late issue of the first edition or maybe the second edition (?), the other volumes in first edition.French edition of one of the most famous and influential early European travel account to the Middle East, first published in Italian in 1650-63. In 1614 della Valle set out for a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. On his long journey he visited Turkey, Egypt, the Holy Land, Syria, Persia and India before he returned home to Rome in 1626. His account is based on letters sent to his friend the Neapolitan physician Mario Schipano. Volume one contains letters from Constantinople where he spent 18 months, the second and third are devoted to Persia where he stayed for four years, and the fourth to India and his return journey via Basra, Aleppo, Cyprus, Sicily, Corsica and Malta. Della Valle spoke proficient Arabic, Persian and Turkish which ennabled him to understand more of the foreign cultures he visited than many of the other Western travellers at this time. "One of the finest works of travel literature" (Howgego). Atabey 1269. Cf Blackmer 1712. Röhricht 946.

Keywords: Near East, palestine, holy land, turkey, turkish, egypt, egyptian, asia, asie, asien, asiatic, travel, voyage, exploration, persia, persian,

Price: EUR 4000.00 = appr. US$ 4347.39 Seller: Charlotte Du Rietz Rare Books
- Book number: 99407

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