Details
HEBERSTEIN, Sigmund (1486-1566). Commentari della Moscovia e parimente della Russia. Venice: Niccolo Bascarini for Giovanni Battista Pedrezano, 1550.
4° (205 x 151mm.). Woodcut arms of Heberstein on title, one folding map of the Muscovite empire by Giacomo Gastaldi, 6 full-page illustrations (printed recto and verso on 3 final leaves). Old vellum-backed boards (stitching broken), modern cloth slipcase.
First edition in Italian of the earliest western account of Russia. Heberstein was Emperor Maximilian I's ambassador to Moscow in 1517 for seven months, he returned in 1526 at the behest of Charles V for a further nine months. His report, commissioned by King Ferdinand of the Romans, was first published in Latin in Vienna in 1549. The illustrations are reversed reduced copies of the Vienna originals, the map is larger and more detailed than Hirschvogel's map in the first edition. Mortimer/Harvard Italian 229.
4° (205 x 151mm.). Woodcut arms of Heberstein on title, one folding map of the Muscovite empire by Giacomo Gastaldi, 6 full-page illustrations (printed recto and verso on 3 final leaves). Old vellum-backed boards (stitching broken), modern cloth slipcase.
First edition in Italian of the earliest western account of Russia. Heberstein was Emperor Maximilian I's ambassador to Moscow in 1517 for seven months, he returned in 1526 at the behest of Charles V for a further nine months. His report, commissioned by King Ferdinand of the Romans, was first published in Latin in Vienna in 1549. The illustrations are reversed reduced copies of the Vienna originals, the map is larger and more detailed than Hirschvogel's map in the first edition. Mortimer/Harvard Italian 229.