Item #4206026 Viaggio di La Perouse intorno al Mondo. Jean François de Galaup de LA PEROUSE.
Viaggio di La Perouse intorno al Mondo.
Viaggio di La Perouse intorno al Mondo.
Viaggio di La Perouse intorno al Mondo.

Viaggio di La Perouse intorno al Mondo.

Milan: Dalla Tipgrafia Sonzogno e Comp. 1815.

Four volumes bound in two, small octavo, with a folding world map outlined in colour and 16 hand-coloured plates; a nice set in contemporary quarter calf, flat spines gilt.

Italian edition with coloured plates

Quite uncommon: the first Italian edition of the voyages of La Pérouse, with a lovely series of handcoloured plates based on the original images of Gaspard Duché de Vancy done for the official French edition. Part of their charm lies in the way that they have been simplified to suit the format of the Italian edition.

Quite uncommon: the first Italian edition of the voyages of La Pérouse, with a lovely series of handcoloured plates based on the original images of Gaspard Duché de Vancy done for the official French edition. Part of their charm lies in the way that they have been simplified to suit the format of the Italian edition.

The existence of this Italian edition is testament to La Pérouse's enduring fame throughout Europe, appearing as it did before even Captain Cook's voyages were translated (Navigazioni di Cook, 1816-17).

It was almost fifteen more years before Peter Dillon published his discovery of the wreck of the Astrolabe and Boussole on Vanikoro and the map for this edition therefore still shows La Pérouse's track finishing at Botany Bay. The disappearance of the entire La Pérouse expedition overshadows what was in reality a great Pacific voyage. While primarily a voyage of exploration and discovery, the possibilities of the fur trade and of French expansion into the Pacific and Asia were evidently investigated in depth. La Pérouse's habit of forwarding records whenever opportunity offered ensured their survival. The first portion was forwarded by sea from Macao; the second (Macao to Kamchatka) went overland with De Lesseps, and the final despatches from Botany Bay.

'Published as part of a series, Raccolta di Viaggi dopo quelli di Cook, of which, according to a series title, this comprised Volumes I-IV but is complete in itself. Strathern also lists a Livorno 1827 edition and a Naples 1831 edition. There is also a Naples 1833 edition' (Forbes). It was evidently sold by subscription: two extensive lists of subscribers appear at the end of the first and last volumes (respectively 26 and 27 pp., so a serious business). In both of them the name of Lover or Lovera figures, who is identified as being from Milan. "G. Lovera" also appears in gilt on the spines of the two volumes.

Ferguson, 609; Forbes, 'Hawaiian National Bibliography', 445; McLaren, 'Lapérouse in the Pacific', 25.

Condition Report: The marbled sides a little rubbed.

Price (AUD): $4,250.00

US$2,791.47   Other currencies

Ref: #4206026

Condition Report