4to, eight parts in one volume. (215x 162 mm). (33); 208, 71 pp; (20), 130 pp; 156, (8) pp.; (16), 68 pp; (8), 56 pp.; 22 pp; (8), 52 pp.; (64) pp., with 4 engraved folding maps, woodcut initials, and 30 full-page and 2 half-page woodcuts, attributed to Hans Burgkmair and his followers. Contemporary full vellum with yapp edges, spine lettered in ink. Some wear to boards and spine commensurate with age. Some scattered staining but interiors overwhelmingly clean, overall very good condition.

The work of the political philosopher Giovanni Botero, the volume is a testimony to an age when centuries of learned tradition were meeting new discoveries. Written to present the progress of Christianity around the globe, the "Relationi Universali" offer a survey of European geographic knowledge at a time when the world was rapidly becoming more globalised. As a political philosopher, Botero took care to describe the kingdoms and peoples of the world with details about their economic resources and population, making the volume a groundbreaking work of demography. He describes Europe, the Americas, Asia (including China,Thailand and Japan) and Central Africa, and offers extensive accounts of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire, Persia and the Portuguese eastern commerce, with references to Ormuz (pt. 1, p. 117f., pp. 123ff.), the Gulf, and Bahrain (which is described as rich in dates as well as pearls; pt. 1.2, p. 26). The most sought-after editions of the work are these posthumous editions including the supplement with Burgkmair's woodcuts (1618, 1622 and 1623). Although produced over a century earlier, seventeen of the woodcuts derive from otherwise lost panoramas of the King of Cochin with his subjects and courtiers. The others depict legendary creatures believed to inhabit the furthest reaches of the world since ancient times, such as cyclopes and cynocephali (dog-headed men).

Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473-1531) was born in Augsburg and became one of the most noted printmakers of his day, noted for his development of chiaroscuro technique and being the first to use a tone-block. His works depicting various peoples of the globe placed his work at the forefront of the developing school of European ethnography.

Giovanni Botero (1544-1617) was trained as a priest and diplomat, but is best remembered as a political and economic thinker. He differed from both Machiavelli and from contemporary thinkers who supported the divine right of kings by arguing that a people had a right to choose a ruler, and to depose them if they behaved unjustly.

Provenance: Inscription on title-page of Charles Saroléa (1870-1953), Belgian philologist, Professor of French at the University of Edinburgh, 1918-1931; French private collection.

Alden/Landis 622/22. Sabin 6806-07. D. F. Lach, Asia in the Making of EuropeII.2 (1977), pp. 235-252. European Americana 622/22. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani 13, 352-362, esp. 357f. Walter Oakeshott, Some Woodcuts by Hans Burgkmair. Printed as an Appendix to the Fourth Part of Le Relationi universalis de Giovanni Botero (Oxford: Roxburghe Club, 1960).