Sales catalogue 519: Maggs Bros

Date:
1929
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/13/75
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 519: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    13/292 page 7
    FIRST EDITION OF A LITTLE-KNOWN NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE TO PALESTINE IN 1480. 1481 A.D. [7] [PALESTINE] BRASCA (Santo). Descrizione o sia relazione del suo viaggio a Gierusalemme nell’-anno 1480. Gothic Letter, 32 long lines to a full page. Initial space at beginning; elsewhere, black Lombards. A woodcut plan of the Holy Sepulchre. 4to, morocco extra, g.e. Milan, Leonardus Pachel and Uldericus Scinzenzeler, for Ambrosius Archintus, 28 March, 1481. (Szz ILLustRATION, OVERLEAF). £525 Hain 3763 (without seeing it). Reichling App. IV, p. 154. Proctor 5934. The rare First Edition of a little-known account (in Italian) of a pilgrimage to Palestine in 1480; to which the author has added a guide for would-be pilgrims, in which he plans a pilgrim’s itinerary, for Palestine and Cairo, giving most absorbing details regarding the expenses, etc., of the trip. The author, Sancto Brasca, was a Milanese gentleman, the son of Matroniano Brasca; he was a man of letters, and a poet. From his epitaph in the church of Saint Euphemia at Milan, he was twice Questor (Quaestor regius); he was also ducal chancellor to the Sforza. His pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which is men- tioned in his epitaph, was made in 1480; and the following year he found a publisher for the record of his travels, which he dedicated to Antonio Landriano, treasurer- general to the Duke of Milan. The narrative reveals Santo Brasca as a man en- dowed with a most orderly mind; a lover of accurate detail. His account stands high among early travel-books because he has kept his imagination out of it; he has written the work in a straightforward and simple manner, and with the honest desire to assist other pilgrims by his first-hand knowledge of travelling conditions between Venice and Palestine. The first part of the book contains a most exact narrative, in diary form, of Brasca’s pilgrimage. This occupied a little over six months; Brasca left Milan on Saturday, 29 April, 1480, and was home again on Saturday, Nov. 5th. His journey to the coast, at Venice, is not skipped over lightly, but described at some length; and most thorough is his account of the monasteries and churches of Venice. On the 5th of June he embarked, in company with ninety other pilgrims, on a pilgrim- boat bound for Joppa. Throughout the voyage he kept a most exact journal, record- ing and describing the ports of call and places sighted, and giving interesting details as to the storms encountered, other vessels passed, distances covered, the speed of the boat, etc. Down the Adriatic Sea, the vessel put in at Parenzo, Zara, Spalato, Lesina, Curzola, Ragusa, and Durazzo; in the Ionian Sea at Corfu; and, while in
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