Beschreibung:

Title: Lettres Edifiantes Et Curieuses, Ecrites Des Missions Estrangeres, par quelques Missionnaires de la Compagnie de Jesus. V. Recueil [bound with VI. Receuil] Author: [Duhalde, Jean Baptiste, editor] Place: Paris Publisher: Chez Nicolas le Clerc Date: 1724 & 1723 Description: [32], 287, [5]; lxiv, [4], 250, [6] pp. With 2 folding engraved maps. (12mo) 16x9 cm (6¼x3½"), period calf, spine tooled in gilt, raised bands, morocco lettering piece, marbled endpapers. The important fifth volume of this compilation letters of Jesuit missionaries, containing, among other significant features, Eusebio Francisco Kino's important map of the Gulf of California and adjacent land masses, “Passage par Terre a la Californie,” establishing that California was not an island. Streeter Sale 2424, describing the 1705 first edition, notes that: "The Lettres contains the first translation of Father Francisco Piccolo's 'Informe del Estado de la Neuva Christiandad de California,' the first printed description of California to receive wide circulation - mainly in translation. The map is the famous Kino map of California... The map is remarkably accurate, and remained the best map of much of the area until the twentieth century." The map, measuring 23.5x21 cm. (9¼x8¼"), illustrates Kino's discoveries in the Southwest, and demonstrated that California was, after all, not an island. Describing the manuscript map on which it was based, Wheat writes "On this small but influential map, which extends south on the peninsula to Loreto and s. Fran.co Xavier de Bige, and to the Rio de Cinaloa on the Sonora coast, the Gila (termed the R. Hila) is correctly shown flowing westerly into the Colorado River not far from the larger river's mouth... Kino's map exerted a great influence on contemporary cartography, especially after the French mapmaker, Guillaume Delisle, adopted the redoubtable missionary's thesis..." The present volume is a reprint of the original 1705 edition. The Kino map is the same though. Some maps have page and volume note in upper right margin. This one does not. The map in Vol. VI is a map of the Philippines, an odd archipelago. Provenance: Arkway 5/85 References: Howes L299; Wagner: Northwest Coast 483; Wagner: Spanish Southwest 74A; Wheat, Transmississippi I, pp. 75-76, #89. Lot Amendments Condition: Some rubbing to spine and edges, spine label chipped; very good. Item number: 266936