Contarini, Ambrogio:

$450,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

VIAGGIO AD USSUM HASSAN RE DE PERSIA: QUESTO E EL VIAZO DE MISIER AMBROSIO CONTARIN AMBASADOR DE ILLUSTRISSIMA SIGNORIA DE VENESIA AL SIGNOR UXUNCASSAM RE DE ... From the collection of R. David Parsons. Very rare first edition of the first European account of Russia, one of a handful of secular incunable travelogues in a vernacular language, and one of an even a smaller number to be published contemporaneously - within a year of the trip's completion. It also includes one of the most important early accounts of Persia, with which it is chiefly concerned.Contarini travelled between 1474 and 1477 and published his account in 1478. Although preceded by the voyages of Polo and Pordenone, Contarini's account is far more detailed. Furthermore, those earlier accounts, of which only Polo's was published before Contarini's, describe medieval voyages undertaken a hundred and two hundred years earlier, respectively. Only two copies are located in American libraries (Morgan and Bell), twelve copies listed worldwide in ISTC, and no recorded copy on the market. Although there is no evidence that Columbus knew the work, there is a copy in the Colombina in Seville, suggesting that from the vantage point of the early sixteenth century, it was deemed an essential travel book.Ambrogio Contarini (1429–1499) was dispatched to the court of Uzun Hasan (given as "Uxuncassam" in the title) in February 1474 with the aim of securing for Venice an ally against the Turks. This was the third such mission

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