Domenico SESTINI

Rare first edition of the French translation prepared by Pingeron, who enriched it with notes (cf. Attabey, 1127. Not in Chadenat, Hage Chahine or Blackmer. Monglond, I, 466. Brunet, V, 317. Quérard, IX, 98). Only one copy recorded in Italian public collections (Ravenna).

Our copy is preserved in its original blue-grey wrappers, the spine plain with contemporary manuscript titling, entirely uncut.

First French edition of this uncommon work: other writings by Sestini are encountered more frequently (perhaps owing to its date of publication?).

With a dedicatory epistle to the comte de La Billardrie d'Angivillier.

Abbot Domenico Sestini (1750–1832) was a numismatist, archaeologist, and extensive traveller. He was the first, in 1780, to mention the Sicilian citron in his description of the "à l'éponge" method for extracting essential lemon oil.

A pleasing, as-issued copy.

First edition, illustrated with three folding in-text tables (Cf. Brunet, III, 330. Vivien de Saint-Martin, Voyages faits en Asie Mineure depuis le XIIIe siècle, no. 148. Atabey, The Ottoman World, 1126. Weber, II, 595. Not in Blackmer, but see nos. 1530 & 1531.)

Half calf binding with corners, spine gilt-tooled with lyres and decorative friezes, marbled paper boards, endpapers and pastedowns of decorative patterned paper.
Restorations with small losses to head and tail of spine, staining to the boards and to the upper and lower margins of the leaves.

This account follows that of the Voyage de Constantinople à Bassora. The journey was undertaken while Sestini was in the service of Robert Ainslie, the British ambassador to the Porte.

He travelled across Asia Minor and returned via Baghdad, Aleppo, Alexandria, and Cyprus.