VALLE (Pietro della).
Les Fameux Voyages de Pietro Della Valle Gentil-Homme Romain,
This set has a map not recorded by Blackmer. According to Gibbon “ no traveller knew and described Persia so well as P. della Valle“ another,( Sir Henry Yule ) goes further describing the author as “ the prince of all who have related their experiences… [one] insatiate in curiosity, the most intelligent in apprehension, the fullest and most accurate in description“. His journey was suggested by the addressee of these fifty-four letters the Neapolitan doctor Schipano. Della Valle set off first on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, he continued his travels through Syria and on to Persia where he met and married the Circassian Setti Manni. Having spent some time at the court of Shah Abbas in northern Persia he continued his travels on to India during which journey his wife died, returning from Goa to Muscat and up the Persian Gulf to Bushire, thence overland to the Mediterranean and home. The first book was prepared for and seen through the press by the author himself, the second two volumes he prepared but never saw printed and the final volume was presented more or less in unedited form by his four of his fourteen sons. cf. Blackmer, 1712. Olivier 710 II. fer. 4.
