Henri de Beauvau. Navigation Page.
The Most Complete Edition
With 49 Engraved Maps And Views
BEAUVAU,
Henri de. Relation
iournaliere du voyage du Levant faict & descrit par... Henry de Beauvau,
Baron di dict lieu... Reveu, augmenté et enrichy par l’autheur de
pourtraicts des lieux les plus remarquables. Nancy, Iacob Garnich, 1619.
4to. [24.2 x 19 cm], (4) ff. including engraved title, 181 (recte 180) pp.
with 49 engraved plates in text.
Some faint water staining
to upper corner of some leaves, scattered spotting throughout, but generally
very good.
A tiny pinhole on the map of Rhodes. Tightly bound.
An attractive copy of
Beauvau’s 1605 expedition through Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Palestine and
Egypt, one of the most substantially illustrated French travelogues of the
first half of the 17th century relating to the Near East. Of special note is
Beauvau’s use of cartographic illustration suggestive of the Italian
isolarios of the period: the 49 maps and views of Aegean islands, etc.,
engraved in the manner of Bertelli and Camocio, remind us that at this early
date France did not as yet have a very well developed cartographic style,
forcing publishers to look for models elsewhere—namely Italy, where the
Italians had been publishing isolarios for more than a century. The plates,
however, were engraved by a Frenchman, Jean Appier Hanzelet, of Lorraine, a
very good engraver who is best known for his book on pyrotechnics with
memorable illustrations in a kindred style.
Beauvau describes many religious landmarks and
holy sites (this edition includes floor plans of the more important churches
in Jerusalem) as well as providing details on peoples of various faiths he
encountered during his travels. Mentioned in the Relation
are a number of legendary boulders and stones in Palestine which bear
curious markings, allegedly the imprints of the bodies of three apostles on
stones in the Garden of Gethsemane and of St. Jerome’s body in the desert
(p. 148).
Henri de Beauvau, a soldier and diplomat,
fought the Turks in Hungary first in the service of Emperor Rudolph III, and
then under the elector of Bavaria. He embarked upon this journey in 1605,
regarding it as a diplomatic venture rather than a pilgrimage.
The work first appeared without illustrations
in an octavo format in 1608. The first illustrated edition was published in
1615, by Garnich. It is clear from the text that the illustrations were
specifically engraved for the work and thus the Garnich editions are
traditionally considered the most complete. The 1619 edition is not in OCLC;
we have located two copies: Dresden and the British Library. OCLC records a
Paris, 1619 edition with the imprint of Gilles Robinor at Niedersachs. The
1615 Nancy edition is held by Cornell, NYPL, Yale, Chicago, Oxford (detailed
collation, to which our copy conforms).
* *Atabey
85; this edition not in Blackmer (cf. 106 for first illustrated edition);
Brunet I.724 (s.v Beauveau); Zacharakis 136-153.
Price: On request.
