8vo. xii, 320 pp., frontispiece, photographs, 1 map, cloth in slightly rubbed round edges d/w, biblio, index, previous owner’s inscription on front fly leaf, pencil notes on rear endpaper, otherwise copy inside clean & in very good condition, James Barrie, London, first edition, 1953.

Synopsis

This is one of the earliest journeys taken by a European, Pietro Della Valle to Constantinople, Syria, Iraq, Iran , Arabia and India. Valle’s writings (1586-1652) are considered the richest, most sophisticated contemporary record we have of the state of the world in the first quarter of the Seventeenth Century.