An important compilation of travels and voyages

RAMUSIO, Giovanni Battista.

Primo volume, & Terza editione Delle Navigationi et Viaggi... [&] Secondo Volume... [&] Dell Navigationi et Viaggi Raccolte da M. Gio. Battista Ramusio, Voukme Terzo.
Venice: Stamperia de Giunti, 1563, 1559 & 1606. Three volumes. folio (300 x 200mm), later uniform vellum reusing liturgical manuscript leaves with added ink speckling, red edges, later marbled endpapers. Vol 1: title+[vi}+394 numbered leaves, three double-page woodcut maps. Vol 2: title+[4]+156 numbered leaves, woodcuts in text. Vol 3: title+[x]+430 numbered leaves, 7 double-page maps, other woodcuts in text.

Vol 1: title of map of Africa shaved. Vol 3: final leaf laid on rear endpaper.

All three volumes of Ramusio's 'Raccolta di Navigationi et Viaggi' from different editions, but uniformly bound. The 'Raccolta', a collection of travel accounts, was the first such compilation of both historical and recent narratives of discovery and was based on the last reports received by the Venetian state.
The first volume (first published in 1550, this volume the third edition), containing the travels of the Portuguese navigators along Africa and to the Indian Ocean, and is illustrated with the famous 'up-side down' maps of Africa, south Asia and the Far East.
The third volume was completed before the second (first published 1556, this example from the last edition, 1606) and recounts the histories of the Spanish and French in America, as well as the 1563 voyage of Cesare Fedrici to India, Sri Lanka and Sumatra. The maps are Cusco, Nuova Francia, Brazil, Africa, Sumatra, Hochelaga and the Americas, with the evidence of worm damage to the woodblocks indicative of this edition.
The second volume, from the first edition, begins with Marco Polo and continues with other descriptions of the Central Asia, Tartary and the East Indies.

Ex Libris: Michael Sharpe.
Stock ID : 22073