Information
IMPORTANT 16TH CENTURY RELATION OF A SHIPWRECK NEAR THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE
MARTINEZ, Pierre. Raguaglio d'un Notabilissimo Naufragio, cavato da una lettera del...
Venice, Gioliti, 1588. 8vo. Contemporary vellum.
| Orders and Information | € 18500 |
Italian edition of an important relation of a shipwreck by the Jesuit Pierre Martins or Martinez (1542-1598). During his voyage to the Indies, the ship collided in August 1585 with a rock near Cape of Good Hope, which according to the author caused one of the most "effroyables & horribles" shipwrecks known at that time, caused by the total darkness of the night, a long agony of death and the screaming of all the passengers aboard of the ship. The author survived and was able to write an account on the shipwreck, in a letter sent to the "Reverend P. General de la Compagnie de Jesus".
The work appeared in the same year in Latin, French, Spanish, and also in Portuguese and German. This Italian edition was also published in the same year in Milan and Rome.
Martins was a missionary at Fez in Africa where he was taken prisoner by the Mores. He left Lisbon on the 10th of April 1585 for the missions in the East Indies on which journey he shipwrecked. Later he became bishop of Japan, where he arrived in 1596. A year later he was forced to return to the Indies, where he died nearby Malaca on 13 February 1598. Pierre Martins has sometimes been confused with a Pierre Martinez (1577-1620), missionary at the Philippines, but according to De Backer-Sommervogel they are two different persons.
Very good copy, with two leaves restored in the margin. Binding also in very good condition
