Lot 4. AMERICAS

A crisp copy of this wide-ranging topographical dictionary of the New World, in the preferred Italian version. Published in English a year earlier in a much smaller format, the work benefited for this edition of the 18th-c. Italian taste: printed on thick paper, it is adorned with elegant full-page illustrations, folding plates of habour views, city plans, maps, American industries such as tobacco processing and cotton manufacturing, but also animal and bird plates of high quality.

“”A comparison of the entries [between the English and Italian editions] shows that although the words were trans-lated literally, the printer, Marco Coltellini, has elevated the cramped, unattractive English original into a handsome book, and the visual effect of the Italian edition is strikingly superior. Because it is a translation of an English work, there is much more information about the English colonies in America than is found in most geographical books written by conti-nental authors up to this time”” (Hough, Italians and the Making of America, 81).

Description

Three volumes 4to (30.8 x 23cm.), engraved frontispiece, folding engraved map of the Americas (slightly torn), vol.I: 29 engraved plates and maps (6 folding, lacking plate Baja di Campeggio but with a duplicate of the isthmus of Panama), vol.II: 23 engraved plates and maps (11 folding), vol.III: 24 engraved plates and maps (8 folding), contemporary calf-backed patterned paper boards; a bit rubbed.

Bibliography

Cox II, 131; Howes A-207; Phillips, Atlases 1161; Sabin 26814.