[Rarebooks] fa: [IRAN] - VIAGGI di PIETRO DELLA VALLE - LA PERSIA (Parte Prima) - 1681

[ArCh]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, September, 23. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y83us2aq

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Pietro Della Valle: Viaggi di Pietro Della Valle il Pellegrino, Descritti da lui medesimo in Lettere familiari. All' erudito suo Amico Mario Schipano. La Persia... Parte prima. Venetia [Venice]: Gio: Batista Tramontino, 1681. Thick 12mo (15 cm) in early/period full vellum, recased, new endpapers; 610 + [28] pp. Volume I only, of two volumes on Persia. Early owner's signature clipped from the bottom of the title-page; some spotting to the fore-edge of the text block, occasional light browning and damp-staining to the leaves, with a few scattered small spots and stains.

An early printing of the first part of Della Valle's travels in Persia, first published in 1658. Two additional volumes were issued covering his  travels in Turkey and India. Pietro Della Valle (1586-1652) was "one of the most remarkable travelers of the Renaissance." Leaving Venice in 1614 on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he ended up spending nearly twelve years traveling and living in Turkey, India, Persia and other parts of the Middle East. While in Baghdad, he fell in love with and married a local girl, the daughter of a Nestorian Catholic father and an Armenian mother. "Della Valle's eighteen letters from Persia provide one of the most detailed sources of information for most aspects of Persian life in the second half of Shah ʿAbbās' reign" (Encyclopaedia Iranica, online ed.)