MANDEVILLE, Jean de.

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Tractato de le piu maravegliose cose e piu notabile che si trovino in le parte del mondo. A very early printed edition of one of the most influential travel books of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, The Travels of Sir John Mandeville carried European readers to the Holy Land, Egypt, Persia, India, and Cathay. First circulating in manuscript from c.1357, it was among the earliest travel narratives to reach print and helped shape European conceptions of Asia well into the age of discovery. Though framed as the personal memoir of an English knight, the text was largely compiled from earlier sources - plausibly by Jean le Long of St Bertin - including material ultimately derived from Odoric of Pordenone. While the persona of Mandeville is fictitious, the work was long accepted as authoritative and was intended seriously, its mixture of observation, hearsay, and marvels forming the standard image of the East for generations.The book's importance for the history of exploration, and specifically for Columbus, is well established. Its influence persisted into the 15th and 16th centuries, precisely when Europeans were seeking new routes to Asia. Mandeville was widely read in Italy, where interest in eastern and western voyages was especially intense. His descriptions of Cathay were known to have been consulted by Columbus and probably earlier by Toscanelli; later explorers including Cabot and Vespucci moved within the same northern Italian intellectual milieu. Contemporary and ne

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