DELLE NAVIGATIONI ET VIAGGI.IN TRE VOLUME DIVISE.

An attractive set of mixed early editions in matching bindings of the first scholarly voyage collection assembled in the 16th century, one of the first in a modern language, with more maps and illustrations than any prior anthology, and containing accounts not previously published. The first and second volumes contain the same early ownership inscription of the Capuchin convent of the Immaculate Conception in Milan, which was established in 1593 and ceased operations in 1810, suggesting that these volumes have been together from at least the 18th century, if not from time of publication. Ramusio's compilation is of particular interest for Americanists for presenting the first printed accounts of Verrazzano in New York and Ulloa in California, in addition to those of earlier chroniclers such as Oviedo, Martyr, and others. A public servant of the Venetian republic, Ramusio was the first genuine scholar to produce a travel collection, translating the documents directly from the original sources whenever possible. Ramusio's effort is the first general compilation of narratives of the European exploration of the rest of the world, and his purpose in compiling it was humanistic in nature: the dissemination of increasingly rare historical texts in accurate editions in the vernacular. Ramusio was involved with a distinguished circle of Venetian humanists, including such luminaries as Bembo, Navagero, Paulo Manuzio (of the Aldine publishing house) and Girolamo Fracastoro, although the work's place in 16th-century Italian historical writing appears largely unconsidered. The first volume describes great Portuguese voyages around Africa and onto Asia including those of Vasco da Gama, and Alvise da Cadamosto, the relations of Leo Africanus, Amerigo Vespucci and Alvarez, as well as Maximilian of Transylvania's and Antonio Pigafetta's accounts of the voyage of Magellan. Also included here, treated substantially for the first time in travel literature, is an important section on Japan, drawn from various Jesuit accounts available to the author including the famous letter from Francis Xavier in which he describes Japan for the first time to a western audience. Volume two contains various accounts of travels to the Near and Far East as well as to the extreme north including those of Marco Polo, Herberstein and Zeni. There is considerable information on Poland also appearing in this edition for the first time. The third volume is the most lavishly produced and illustrated and is devoted entirely to early exploration of the Americas. Alongside seven large woodcut maps by Gastaldi are descriptions by Peter Martyr, Oviedo (including many famous illustrations), Cortez (with a woodcut plan of Mexico City), Pizzaro, Cabeza de Vaca, and Verrazzano, among others. The account by Verrazzano is of particular importance, being the very first account in print of his "discovery" of New York harbor. Similarly, the volume includes the first printed relations of the expeditions of Francisco de Ulloa (1539) through California to the mouth of the Colorado. The final section on New France is particularly notable, being an early general publication of Cartier's Canadian experiences. Ramusio's maps are particularly important. The western hemisphere map in the third volume, the product of a collaboration between Ramusio and Oviedo, is the most complete one of its time, even showing Japan as more than one island. It is called by Wheat "the earliest cartographic reflection" of the advance of European knowledge of the Americas. Other notable maps include "La Nouva Francia," which is the second separate map of the northeast of the present day United States, and "La Terra de Hochelaga," the first plan of Montreal and the earliest printed plan of a settlement in North America. From John Locke to Henry Harrisse, scholars and bibliographers have praised Ramusio for his choice of material, his care and accuracy in presenting it, and his assiduous sorting of the evidence of the.…