Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Sales catalogue 519: Maggs Bros. Source: Wellcome Collection.
53/292 page 41
![1537 A.D. [45] CARPINI (John of Pian de). Opera dilettevole da intendere, nella qual si contiene doi Itinerarii in Tartaria, per alcuni Frati dell’ ordine Minore, € di. S. Dominico, mandati da Papa Innocentio IIII, nella detta Provincia de Scithia per Ambasciatori, Non piu vulgarizata. With a curious woodcut on the title of a Tartar. OricinaL EpiTIonN. I2mo, morocco, g.e. Venice, Giovanni Antonio de Nicolini da Sabio, 1537. (See ILLusrraTion, OverveaF). SAEs 10s: Streit, Bibliotheca Missionum, Vol. IV, No. 416. ‘* This rare work contains the relation of John of Piano di Carpini, O.F.M., and that of the Dominican Simon of St. Quentin.”’ Carpini was born in Italy about 1220. About twenty years later the Tartars were invading Europe under the great Khan Ogodai and in 1245 the Pope deter- mined to send an Kmbassay to the Khan asking him to stop his ravages into Kuro- pean countries. Carpini, now a Minor Franciscan Monk, was chosen as Ambassa- dor and set out in April, 1245. He travelled via Kieff to the river Volga where he met Batu, the grandson of Chingiz Khan. The Pope’s letter was translated into Mongolian and Carpini was conducted to the Great Khan Kuyuk who had succeeded Ogodai at the Imperial Camp near Karakorum. He was well received and travelled back to Europe reaching Lyons in 1427 with the Great Khan’s answer to the Pope. Carpini was one of the very earliest to make mention of Prester John and was the first to bring to Western knowledge particulars of the various countries he had visited. He gives an accurate account of the Mongols but often gives way to the marvellous like other early travellers. 1538 A.D. [46] [CHARLES V AND THE TURKISH EMPIRE] Declar- acion de las Visiones vistas y suefios echos por Otomano Emperador de las Turquias Phe . | Manuscript (in Spanish) in early sixteenth century writing, on the fate of the Ottoman Empire. 7 pp., folio, half morocco. [| Constantinople, 15th May, 1538]. £5 5s. An extremely entertaining document, being a contemporary transcript of a letter written from Constantinople by a Spaniard, describing the alarming visions and dreams of the Sultan, and the interpretation of ‘‘ these terrible celestial signs.’’ A description of the dreams is followed by a full astrological explanation of the evils which they portend for Barbarossa, the famous Algerian pirate, and his infidels; and the complete downfall of the Ottoman Empire. An amusing set of verses at the end express the writer’s fervent belief that the Great German Caesar (Charles V) is destined to wield the Ottoman sceptre and draw that Empire into the Catholic fold. 1538 A.D. [47| SOLINUS (Julius). Rerum toto orbe memorabilium thesaurus. Pomponii Melae de situ orbis. With numerous large woodcut maps in the text, and two double-paged maps, on one of which America (“ Terra Incognita ”’) appears. Folio, very fine tall copy in full crimson levant morocco, gilt, g.e. Basel, Michel Isengrin and Heinrich Petri, 1528. nat](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31664374_0053.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
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