4to. [21 x 15 cm], three parts in 1 vol., I: 79 ff., 1 integral blank, II: 1 folding woodcut map of Hispaniola, 64, (2) ff., including 3 full and one half-page woodcuts; III: (15) ff., without final blank (D4). Bound in 19th century quarter calf and marbled papers over boards, title gilt on spine, with upper section of front joint shaken but sound. First title with some staining and scoring of former ownership inscriptions; inconsequential foxing in margin of a few leaves, some traces of humidity in a single signature (D) of part II; otherwise, a fresh and unsophisticated copy, excellent.

Very scarce first edition of Ramusio’s first published work, containing the first appearance of Peter Martyr in Italian, and constituting the first Italian language voyage anthology devoted to the Americas, As well as the second Italian voyage anthology overall, preceded only by the 1508 Montalbodo (which had a wider geographical scope). The work contains an abridgement of Peter Martyr’s Decades (1530), of the second part Oviedo’s Natural Hystoria de las Indias (1530), and a translation of the anonymous Conquista del Peru (Spanish original same year). According to Church, the work contains the first printed map of Santo Domingo, the  block for which is re-used  in Part III of Ramusio’s anthology (1555). While not rare in census, the work is extremely scarce on the market, the last complete copy appearing in the first segment of the Streeter Sale, 40 years ago.

The first part is better described as an abridgement with considerable re-ordering than a translation, and it has been suggested that the differences between the 1530 Peter Martyr and the present text are sufficiently numerous that it may not be taken from the printed text at all, but from a manuscript, a suggestion rightly rejected by Wroth (see Arents 3). What is less clear, and rather surprising, is how the accounts given here compare with those found in Ramusio’s principal work, a subject of potential interest for studying the development of Ramusio’s historiographical method.

The work was issued with an unusually large woodcut map [530 x 425 cm], of great importance for containing the first occurrence of the contemporary name for the Pacific (Mare del Sud) as well as the Straits of Magellan on a printed map,, and giving Europeans an impressively accurate picture of the New World (see Burden #10 for further details). Whether because it was greatly prized and thus removed or because it was simply too large for an octavo sized volume, it is among the rarest of early maps of America. According to Burden, the first known copy of the map (without the book)  was acquired by James Lenox in 1853 and resides in the New York Public Library. The sole known copy of the map in the book was acquired by the JCB in 1929, and must be reckoned one of the greatest treasures of that institution. A third copy of the map (and only the map) was acquired by a Chicago collector in 1987. No other copies are recorded or have appeared on the market since that time.

* Alden/Landis 524/28; JCBAR 29:25-28; Church 69; Arents 3; Harrisse (BAV) 190; Streeter I.13; Borba II.32; Burden #10; Hough, The Italians and the Creation of America#31 (and #103 for map).  

Price: $49,500.00