Ioan. Petri Maffeii, Bergomatis e Societate Iesu, Historiarum Indicarum Libri XVI. Selectarum, item, ex India epistolarum ...

PORTUGUESE MISSIONARY ACCOUNTS, WITH LENGTHY PRESENTATION INSCRIPTION

Small folio (302 x 200 mm), rebound in full calf. Folding engraved map of the world. Minor worming to the world map, principally affecting blank margin and a small area outside the border. Lengthy presentation inscription on a free end-paper, dated 4th November, 1648.

Cologne, Officina Birckmann [Heirs of Arnold Birckmann] for Arnold Mylius, 1593. 

This is the second Cologne edition of this important collection of accounts of the Portuguese discoveries and missionary work in China and Japan, the East Indies and Brazil and the Americas. The text was first published in Florence in 1588, without a map. The subsequent Cologne edition of 1589 was first to contain a map, which is reprinted in this edition.

"Maffei writes extensively about Brazil, describing it very accurately" (Borba de Moraes). The second part reprints the correspondence of Francis Xavier, Louis de Almeyda and many other Jesuit travellers to the Far East, followed by a biography of Saint Ignatius Loyola.

The world map, 'Indiarum Orientalium Occidentaliumque descriptio Pet. Maffei Historiae harum verissimae dedicata.', is copied from Ortelius’ early world map, with the prominent bulge in the coast of South America, and the extensive southern continent along the foot of the map, but with the loose cloud border replaced by a more formalized strapwork design.

Prize presentation signed by Joannes Leurenius (1606-1656) who entered the Jesuit order in 1627 and taught at a College in Aix-la-Chapelle. 

Alden & Landis 593/38; Alt-Japan Katalog 915; Borba de Moraes, pp. 508-509; Cordier, Japonica, cols. 63-64; Cordier, Sinica, col. 782; De Backer/Sommervogel V,  298, no.3; Palau 146981; Sabin 43772; VD16 M106.

 

Stock Code: 223837