VIAGE DEL MUNDO

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CIRCUMNAVIGATION, including Vietnam, Japan, Cape of Good Hope and Bermuda.

Pedro ORDONEZ de Ceballos (1556-1636). Viage del Mundo. Madrid: Luis Sanchez, 1614, quarto (191 x 137mm; 7 ½ x 5 3/8 inches). Collation: *2**8 A-Nn8 Oo4 Pp2. 301 leaves (of 304, lacking L2, L3 and Y8), title with large woodcut coat-of-arms, woodcut portrait of the author on **8v, woodcut initials. (Lacks three text leaves as above, title-leaf laid down with loss to three letters, supplied in manuscript facsimile, repaired holes to last leaf with a few letters supplied in facsimile, small ‘v'-shaped nicks to the upper blank margins of pp. 120-126, soiling, occasional light old damp staining). Early 20^th-century dark blue morocco gilt by J. Leighton of Brewer Street, London, covers rued in gilt, spine in six compartments, elaborately tooled in gilt, with raised bands, lettered in the second and third compartments, the others with repeat all-over decoration composed from small tools around a large flower-spray tool, gilt turn-ins, marbled endpapers, gilt edges.

Provenance: early indistinct ink inscriptions; John Carter Brown (bookplate with ‘release stamp', earlier secondary stamp in red to text page); Christies, auction lot 258, sale 19th May 2000.

A John Carter Brown copy, the very rare first edition of an account of the first circumnavigation to start from the Americas (the author set sail in 1589). One of two copies on the market since the early 1950s: both copies incomplete.

The fragmentary nature of the narrative means that working out the author's exact route is tricky, but he did apparently make landfall at the Cape and there are two chapters which feature one of the earliest accounts of Bermuda (before it was settled by the Somers Islands Company in 1612). The author also travelled extensively in South America, also journeying to the Far East, including visits to the Philippines, China (including Macao), Vietnam and Japan. He returned to Quito, Peru, in 1593.

One other copy, also incomplete, is listed as having sold at auction since the Harmsworth copy in 1952.

NB the Christies description mentions a missing engraved portrait – I think this may have been a mistake as I have not been able to trace any other mention of this.

Alden and Landis 614/82; JCB (3) II:104-5; Medina, Biblioteca Hispano-Americana 1874; Palau 203651; Sabin 57524.; Sabin 57524 (‘rare’); Streit I:345.