Hodaeporicon Indiae orientalis; das ist: warhafftige Beschreibung der ansehlich lobwürdigen Reysz (A Guidebook to the East Indies; that is, a Realistic Account of a Most Praiseworthy Journey)

Leipzig: Henning Grosse, the younger (Jacob Popporeich; Beerwaldin), 1608. Hardcover. Good. Octavo (14.6 by 8.7 cm): [colon in parens]8 [colon in rev. parens]4 A-Z8 a-b8 c7 (= 219 leaves); [24], 63, 74-402, [22] pp; 18 (of 21) folding copperplate engravings. Title in red and black; lettrines and woodcut ornaments; pagination jumps from page 63 to 74 (text complete); final leaf colophon with woodcut vignette, dated 1607. Text in German. Later marbled calf (lightly rubbed at edges); gilt spine with raised bands; edges stained red. Title mounted and trimmed 2-3 mm along bottom; light to moderate embrowning, with occasional stains; faint dampstain at bottom margin in latter third (just encroaching on text; somewhat heavier on several leaves); cut tightly at top margin, sometimes encroaching on headlines in final 20 leaves. Lacks three folding plates: bird's-eye view of Damascus; inhabitants of Damascus; worshippers at a shrine. Additionally lacks right half of the map of Ethiopia, beyond the fold. A good, though imperfect copy, with eight complete folding maps, and ten folding plates, signed by Henning Grosse, the younger.

Rare German edition of Ludovico de Varthema's Itinerario, the sensationally popular and highly influential travel account of his seven-year of journey through Arabia, Syria, Ethiopia, Persia, India, and the East Indies. "Unlike most of the commentators of the sixteenth century, Varthema went to the East over the land routes of the Levant, learned colloquial Arabic, and acknowledged Islam. He apparently left Venice for Egypt and Syria around 1502, arrived at Cambay in India around October 10, 1504, and then journeyed inland and southward to Vijayanagar, and finally wound up in Calicut [Kozhikode] at the beginning of 1505. He then proceeded southward, rounded Cape Comorin [Kanyakumari] by sea and perhaps then traveled northward along the eastern coast of India." (Lach). Like his fellow Italians and the Portuguese, Varthema eagerly sought information about the Eastern trade in the wake of the Turkish victory at Constantinople. "Most of what Europe in general learned about the East during the first half of the sixteenth century," as Lach notes, "related to the spice trade."

Before reaching the Spiceries, however, Varthema passed through the Arabian peninsula. After his arrival in Damascus in April 1503 he joined the Mameluke garrison and then journeyed to Khaybar, Medina, and Mecca. The first European to visit Islam's two holiest cities, Vartherma offers a detailed description of the hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. It appears that Varthema had at least some knowledge of Muslim prayers and rites. "His description of the hajj was judged correct by Richard Francis Burton, which suggests that Varthema actually participated in it. The description of the interior of Yemen, which he was probably the first European to visit, is confirmed by that made more than two centuries later by Carsten Niebuhr's Beschreibung von Arabien (Copenhagen, 1772). Therefore Varthema's reliability in the parts of the Itinerario that concern the Arabian Peninsula is not contested" (DBI). His general description of the Hejaz, the western coast of Arabia on the Red Sea, which includes Mecca and Medina, is highly valued as an important source which predates the Ottoman occupation of this region. Varthema also provides the first eye-witness account by a western traveller of the Arabian Gulf region. Our 1608 edition contains complete maps of the Arabian Peninsula and the Gulf, each of which identifies Qatar as "Catura."

Continuing south, Varthema visited Cambay in 1504. This city on the northwest coast of India receives an especially detailed description in the Itinerario. Vijayanagar, the chief city of a late medieval Hindu empire and the economic and cultural center of south India in the early sixteenth century, is described by Varthema as "a second paradise." Pulicat is noted as an entrepôt in the trade with Sri Lanka and Myanmar. Like most travel accounts of the early sixteenth century, the Itinerario describes Kozhikode and the Malabar Coast more than any other part of the East. Writers have, however, long disputed about Varthema's travels east of Kanyakumari, as his descriptions of these regions are generally more vague and inaccurate. According to the Itinerario Varthema touched at several places on the east coast of India and visited Tenasserim (Mergui), Pegu, Malacca, Sumatra, the Moluccas, and Java. He describes pearl fishing in the Coromandel Coast, the jewels of Sri Lanka, along with the sweet oranges of that island ("the best in the world"), the custom of writing "on paper like ours" in Tenasserim. "Varthema may have touched upon Banda, Buru in the Amboina group, and Ternate in the Moluccas in 1505. Irrespective of whether or not he was actually on the islands, Varthema's description of the these three groups in the Spiceries was the first to be circulated in Europe... He correctly reports that the nutmeg tree grows in Banda and locates clove production in "Monoch" (the Moluccas). Roughly accurate are his descriptions of the clove tree and the way in which the cloves are harvested" (Lach). Varthema provides important details about the pepper plant, the coco palm, cinnamon and ginger root, along with a discussion of three kinds of aloes wood. Varthema probably arrived back in Kozhikode on August 27, 1505, where he deserted his Muslim companions and took employment with the Portuguese at Cochin. For his work in India he was knighted by the Portuguese and returned to Lisbon in 1508. Arriving in Rome later that year he made preparations to publish the account of his travels.

Likely born in Bologna, very little is known of the early life of Ludovico de Varthema. "Various clues suggest that in 1500, at the time of starting his journey, Varthema was quite young, but already a grown man. In particular, his vast experience of military matters (pehaps in service to Federico di Montefeltro, the Duke of Urbino) suggest this" (DBI). The first edition of his Itinerario was published in Italian at Rome in 1510. Along with Francanzano da Montalboddo's Paesi Novamente Ritrovati (1507), a collection of first-hand accounts about the spice trade and the routes to India, the Itinerario was one of the two most popular travel books to appear anywhere throughout the sixteenth century; Cordier locates no fewer than twenty editions and re-issues of Varthema's work in Italian (1507), Latin (1511), German (1515), Spanish (1520), Dutch (1553), and English (1577). The Itinerario was also included in many important anthologies of travel accounts: Novus Orbis Regionum ac Insularum Veteribus Incognitarum, edited by Johann Huttich and Sebastian Münster (Basel, 1532); Giovanni Lorenzo d'Anania's L'univserale fabric del mondo (Naples, 1573); it was among the sources of Sebastian Franck's Weltbuch (Tübingen, 1534), which sought to describe all the important countries and peoples of the world, and Antonio Possevino's guidebook to the study of geography and world culture, Apparatus ad omnium gentium historiam (Venice, 1597). "Varthema brought into European literature an appreciation for the areas east of India... which it had previously not received from the sea-travelers and which confirmed by firsthand observation many of the statements made earlier by Marco Polo and the writers of antiquity" (Lach). "Varthema saw Shiite Islam establish itself in the Iranian plateau, visited the last great Hindu state of the Indian peninsula, the empire of Narsinga [Vijayanagara], just over half a century before its disappearance, landed in an Indonesia in transition phase which he found "pagan," that is, Hindu, while ten years later Duarte Barbosa found it Islamized, and cooperated in the beginnings of the Portuguese colonial empire in India" (DBI). "Varthema's Itinerario... had an enormous impact at the time, and in some respects determined the course of European expansion towards the Orient" (Howgego).

The only known manuscript (Landau-Finaly, 9) of the Itinerario is presently located in the Bibliotheca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze. Inserted in the codex is a letter written by Varthema to Vittoria Colonna (1491-1547), the marchioness of Pescara, and one of the most popular poets of sixteenth-century Italy. The letter notes the presentation of the manuscript as a gift to Vittoria because she listended to Varthema with interest when summoned by Vittoria's mother, Agnese de Montefeltro, to recount his travels. References: Blackmer 1719; Carter, Sea of Pearls, p. 68; cf. Cordier, Indosinica I, col. 104 (1610 reprint only); Cox I, p. 260; C. Forti, "Ludovico de Varthema," Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 98 (2020); Gay 140; Goedeke I, p. 379, no. 17, item 9 (note); Howgego, to 1800, V15 (other eds. only); D. F. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe I, pp. 164-166, 503, 593-594 & passim; Macro 2239 f.; Röhricht 574, p. 165; VD17 39:129377V. Not in Atabey.

Full title and imprint: Hodaeporicon Indiae orientalis; das ist: warhafftige Beschreibung der ansehlich lobwürdigen Reysz, welche der edel, gestreng vnd weiterfahrne Ritter, H. Ludwig di Barthema von Bononien aus Italia bürtig, in die orientalische vnd Morgenländer, Syrien, beide Arabien, Persien vnd Indien, auch in Egypten vnd Ethyopein, zu Land vnd Wasser persönlich verrichtet: neben eigentlicher Vermeldung vielerley wunderbahren Sachen, so er darinne[n] gesehen vnd erfahren, alsz da seind man[n]igfaltige Sorten von Thieren vnd Gewächsen, deszgleichen allerhand Völcker Sitten, Leben, Polycey, Glauben, Ceremonien vn[d] Gebräuch, sampt anderer seltzamen denckwürdigen Dingen, da selbst zu sehen: vnd endlich, was er für Angst, Noht vnd Gefahr in der Heidenschafft vieler Ort auszgestanden. Alles von jhme H. Barthema selber in italianischer Sprach schrifftlich verfasst, vnd nu aus dem Original mit sonderm Fleisz verdeutscht: mit schönen Kupfferstücken artlich geziert, vnd in Truck verfertiget: durch Hieronymum Megiserum. Gedruckt zu Leipzig: in Verleg Henning Grossn des Jüngern, jm M.DC.VIII. Jahr [colophon:] Leipzig: typis Beervvaldin: Druckts Jacob Popporeich jm Jahr M.DC.VII. (Inventory #: 54579)