Our next rare book and autograph sale will have a large section of travel literature including guide books and travel journals, that range from the New World to the Tropics of Africa and in style from the documentary to the fiction. It has been produced by a variety of writers, such as travelers, missionaries, explorers, scientists, and pilgrims. First of all we would like to point out the famous and very rare final edition of the Rerum Medicarum Novae Hispaniae Thesaurus, also known as the Mexican Treasury, by the Spanish physician Francisco Hernandez, that despite being printed in 1651 by Vitale Mascardi in Rome never sold in an Italian auction. The volume opens with a beautiful engraved title page exhibiting also a small map of Mexico and has around 800 woodcuts within the text, that show exotic and mostly unknown Aztec plants and animals such as potatoes, cocoa, chocolate, chilli pepper and mais. The volume was published under the guardianship of the Accademia dei Lincei (known also as Lincean Academy), that founded in 1603 by Federico Cesi and Francesco Stelluti with the membership of famous persons such as Galileo Galilei, Francesco Barberini and Cassiano dal Pozzo, was one of the first academies of science to exist in Italy.

Always located in the New World is also the Historia de Yucathan by the Spanish Franciscan historian Diego López de Cogolludo. No copy of this first edition, printed in 1688 in Madrid, sold within the last seventy years. The volume contains information personally gathered by Cogolludo at a time when older sources, written and oral, afterwards lost or destroyed, were still accessible. Sabin 14210 points out: “One of the most valuable fountains of information for the student of American history, the author having access to many valuable documents, some of which are given at length”. Famous for its historical impact and for the beauty of its illustrations is the first edition of the Istoria delle guerre del regno del Brasile from 1698 by the Portuguese Carmelite Giovanni Giuseppe di Santa Teresa, who spent twelve years in the Jesuit missions of South America before returning to Rome where he became librarian of the Jesuit college. The volume that describes the Thirty Years’ War related to the dominion of the South American country, is considered to be “one of the most sumptuous works published in the seventeenth century on a Brazilian subject” (Rubens Borba de Moraes) due to the maps and plates realized by some of the period’s leading artists and engravers, such as Antonio Horacio Andreas, Benedito Farjat and Giovanni Gerolamo Frezza.

Switching from the Americas to Africa, we might cite the very rare first description of Ethiopia, done by the missionary and explorer Francisco Álvares during his stay as Portuguese ambassador to this country from 1520 to 1526, and published in 1540 as Verdadeira Informação das Terras do Preste João das Indias (A True Relation of the Lands of Prester John of the Indies). This travel account, praised by Ramusio who also included parts in his anthology, Navigationi et Viaggi, is considered to be a very important source for Ethiopian history, written just before the country was devastated by the Conqueror al-Ghazi. Within the section of travel books, to be part of the next rare book sale, we should not forget the many guides dedicated to the classical Grand Tour covering France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Greece, providing the reader with illuminating detail and a first-hand perspective of the travel experience. Fascinating colored plates depicting the monuments, landscapes and costumes of the population enhance the understanding of the trip.

By Annette Pozzo