BOTERO, Giovanni

by Giovanni Botero

£32,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

Handsome, superbly illustrated copy of the enlarged edition in seven parts the first illustrated with woodcuts of exotic wonders of this most successful descriptive geography of the world. Educated at the Jesuit college in Palermo and Rome, Giovanni Botero (1544-1617) was a poet and political theorist. In the 1590s, at the service of Cardinal Borromeo, he wrote his Relationi universali , describing Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and their islands; the princes and kingdoms of the world; world religions; the superstitions and evangelisation of the New World; the wonders of the Indies; European wars and famous captains. The 32 impressive woodcuts by Alessandro de Vecchi were here published for the first time, as an addition to Part 4, which could also be a stand-alone work (Vinciana 1090). They translated exotic wonders traditionally found in Africa and Asia into the New World. De Vecchi s figures to the life were probably inspired by C16 illustrated German books; some resemble the wonders portrayed in the Nuremberg Chronicle (e.g., a creature with a wolf s and human head and the sciopod). Also, like some of these works, Botero described cynocaephali (dog-headed men) as cannibals from the Indies (Feest, ed., Indians and Europe , 20). The realistic portrayals of the natives, among the earliest, were recut after those in a long woodcut of the procession of King of Cochin by Hans Burgkmair, printed in 1508-11. Unable to become an active missionary after being expelled from the Jesu

• Binding: Hardcover

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