MONTANUS (Arnold). Ambassades de la Compagnie hollandoise de - Lot 152

MONTANUS (Arnold). Ambassades de la Compagnie hollandoise des Indes d'Orient, vers l'empereur du Japon. Avec une relation exacte des guerres civiles de ce pays-là. Paris, Pierre Witte, 1722. 3 parts in 2 vol. in-12, 257-137-158-(2) p., contemporary speckled Havana basane, spine ribbed, red edges, title-pieces one red, the other Havana (defects including worn corners, significant worm work affecting text in vol.2). "An exceptional compendium of knowledge on seventeenth-century Japan" (Polak). New edition illustrated with six folding plates engraved in intaglio. The work comprises four parts, each with its own title page. The first two parts are combined in the first volume in continuous numbering. The third part is followed by Relation des guerres civiles du Japon, where we see the most important things that happened during the thirty-eight years they lasted. Arnold Montanus (1625-1683), a Calvinist historian and theologian, never left Europe, but developed a passion for travel reports from distant lands. The book owes much to the observations of Jesuit missionaries and, above all, to documents drawn from the archives of the East India Company. (Polak & Dugrand, 58-61: ; Cordier, Japonica, 385).