BOTERO, Giovanni (1533-1617). Le relationi universali divise in sette parti. Quinta impressione ristampata & ricorrette. Venice: Alessandro Vecchi, 1622-23. 8 parts in one volume, 4° (220 x 155mm). Title woodcut, 30 full-page and 2 half-page woodcut illustrations in the Aggiunte a Quarta Parte , of Indians, Polynesians etc. and monsters. Contemporary limp vellum (slightly waterstained). PROVENANCE: Count Wolfgang Engelbert von Auersberg (bookplate and 17th-century inscription Wolfg.Engelb. S.R.J., Count Auersperg sup.cap.Carniolae ). A fine copy of the complete Relationi universali , originally published in parts beginning in 1592. Botero undertook his work as a description of the Catholic world, but soon incorporated finely detailed descriptions of cities, people and discoveries of all the known world. The Relationi was considered for more than a century the best geography in existence. The present copy includes the supplement to part IV with RARE WOODCUTS BY HANS BURGKMAIR which do not otherwise survive. Walter Oakeshott has masterfully shown that many of the woodcuts are actually part of a larger Burgkmair woodblock depicting a procession of the King of Cochin, which was carved up for use in book form. Other woodcuts depict wonderous, fantastical creatures inhabiting the far corners of the world. One of these is reputed to live in the province of Santa Cruz, and is therefore an early representation of life in the New World. These woodcuts very likely also formed part of a larger work by Burgkmair now lost. Both sets of woodcuts clearly were known in the first part of the 16th century, since books illustrated with cuts influenced by them are recorded, but no edition containing these blocks is known before their 17th-century use in the supplement to Botero. Oakeshott has also convincingly argued that they were intended to illustrate the voyage made by Balthasar Springer of Vils from Portugal to India (Cochin) by way of the Cape of Good Hope in 1505. (Cf. Oakeshott, Some woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair printed as an appendix to the fourth part of Le Relatione Vniversali di Giovanni Botero 1618 , Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1960). Sabin 6806 (describing the identical 1618 edition).
BOTERO, Giovanni (1533-1617). Le relationi universali divise in sette parti. Quinta impressione ristampata & ricorrette. Venice: Alessandro Vecchi, 1622-23. 8 parts in one volume, 4° (220 x 155mm). Title woodcut, 30 full-page and 2 half-page woodcut illustrations in the Aggiunte a Quarta Parte , of Indians, Polynesians etc. and monsters. Contemporary limp vellum (slightly waterstained). PROVENANCE: Count Wolfgang Engelbert von Auersberg (bookplate and 17th-century inscription Wolfg.Engelb. S.R.J., Count Auersperg sup.cap.Carniolae ). A fine copy of the complete Relationi universali , originally published in parts beginning in 1592. Botero undertook his work as a description of the Catholic world, but soon incorporated finely detailed descriptions of cities, people and discoveries of all the known world. The Relationi was considered for more than a century the best geography in existence. The present copy includes the supplement to part IV with RARE WOODCUTS BY HANS BURGKMAIR which do not otherwise survive. Walter Oakeshott has masterfully shown that many of the woodcuts are actually part of a larger Burgkmair woodblock depicting a procession of the King of Cochin, which was carved up for use in book form. Other woodcuts depict wonderous, fantastical creatures inhabiting the far corners of the world. One of these is reputed to live in the province of Santa Cruz, and is therefore an early representation of life in the New World. These woodcuts very likely also formed part of a larger work by Burgkmair now lost. Both sets of woodcuts clearly were known in the first part of the 16th century, since books illustrated with cuts influenced by them are recorded, but no edition containing these blocks is known before their 17th-century use in the supplement to Botero. Oakeshott has also convincingly argued that they were intended to illustrate the voyage made by Balthasar Springer of Vils from Portugal to India (Cochin) by way of the Cape of Good Hope in 1505. (Cf. Oakeshott, Some woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair printed as an appendix to the fourth part of Le Relatione Vniversali di Giovanni Botero 1618 , Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1960). Sabin 6806 (describing the identical 1618 edition).
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
