MORISOT, Claude Barth élemy.

by Claude Barth élemy Morisot

£4,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A fine copy, crisp and clean, of the first and only edition, first issue, of this lavishly illustrated Americanum, the first naval history, a veritable naval encyclopaedia (Borba de Moraes). The French Neo-Latin poet Claude Barth élemy Morisot (1592-1661) is especially renowned for his alchemical allegory. Orbis Maritimi is an encyclopaedia of the sea, navigation, maritime customs and folklore a fundamental source on maritime law, like Cleriac s (1647), and travel. Book I is devoted to ancient times, prefaced by a handsome engraving of an ancient naumachia , a popular spectacle, whereby a theatre was flooded and small ships faced one another in a choreographed battle. ..The account begins with the obscure ..origins of navigation and the invention of ships, ancient myths of navigation (e.g., Jason), the most important ancient Greek and Roman sea battles, with observations on the kinds of vessels used, how victors at sea were honoured on return, and maritime spectacles staged in ancient cities. The section on ancient hydrography is a description of the seas, coasts and coastal cities of antiquity, based on ancient sources and providing the modern equivalent of historic place names. It is illustrated with several half-page maps, based on De Bry, including the Iberian peninsula, Britain and Ireland, sundry parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Greece. Book II proceeds through the medieval period, analysing major sea battles by the Gauls, Normans, Britons, Germans, Russians,

• Binding: Hardcover

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