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With Italian Edition of Hennepin's Map

This rare 17th-century volume, the second in a series titled Relazioni di Viaggi Stranieri Nei Nostri Tempi (Reports of Foreign Travel in Our Times), offers a rich compilation of 23 accounts (the complete series of 4 volumes contains a total of 123 accounts). But our chief interest in this little Italian duodecimo is its inclusion of the beautifully engraved and quite rare Italian edition of Louis Hennepin's important map of America. The map is arguably better engraved and more decorative than the original French edition, with a bold engraving style.

Compiled by "Count Aurlelio degli Anzi", a pseudonym for Valerio Zani of Bolgona, the book includes abridged Italian translations of significant exploratory works from the 17th Century, such as Exquemelin, and a brief notice from Gomberville's translation of the Jesuit Father Acuña's account of Pedro Teixeira's second exploration of the Amazon, and, most notably, a summary of Louis Hennepin's first account of Louisiana.

The work includes two handsome engraved folding maps, Corso del Fiume della Wolga and Nuova Francia e Luigiana (12 x 9 inches), the latter, of interest to Americanists, being an Italian edition of Hennepin's map of 1683.   

In addition there are two folding woodcut views, of Siam and Batavia, enhancing the volumes interest and appeal.

The account of the French explorations in the Mississippi Valley, the vast region labeled “Luigiana,” is an abridged version of the Bologna, 1686, Italian translation of Hennepin. As modest as this publication is, it did bring together many texts of more recent explorations which would have otherwise not been available to Italian readers - The Italians and the Creation of America, John Carter Brown Library Exhibition Catalogue.

Hennepin Map

Hennepin's map is perhaps best known as the first map to incorporate the reports of Robert La Salle's journey from the Niagara Falls region, through the Illinois Company and the Upper Mississippi River and the first appearance of the name Louisiana (which appears on the first edition of the map, but is here translated as "La Luigiana").  Robert La Salle (1643-1687) received a grant of land on the island of Montreal in 1666. In 1668, he met with 2 Iroquois Indians, who communicated to him the existence of a westward flowing river, which corresponds with the description of the Ohio River. La Salle joined a Sulpician mission to the west, leaving Montreal on July 6, 1669.

The expedition went via the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario, then on to the Niagara River. The met Louis Jolliet at an Indian Village on the western shores of Lake Ontario, at which point he separated from the party, desiring to search for the river he had heard about from the Iroquois. Over the next several years, La Salle apparently travelled to the area, although his report of having descended the Ohio River to to the falls at Louisville is viewed with skepticism.

In 1672, La Salle met newly the newly appointed Governor of Canada (Comte de Frontenac), who sent La Salle back to France to negotiate a monopoly of the fur trade. La Salle returned on the same ship as Father Louis Hennepin, a Recollect Friar who was headed for New France. La Salle hired Hennepin to serve as the Chaplain at Fort Frontenac, the base of operations from which La Salle and Frontenac hoped to open up the west. After building a ship near Niagara Falls, La Salle and Hennepin, along with Henri de Tonty, set sail, crossing Lake Erie to Lake Huron. During the voyage, Hennepin named Lake St. Clair. By August 1679, they reached Michilimackinac and later Green Bay (Baye des Puans), which is named on the map.

La Salle and a small party explored Lake Michigan, meeting up back up with Tonty at the mouth of the Miami (St. Joseph) River, where they constructed Fort Miami. On December 3, 1679, the combined party ascended the river to the South Bend, Indiana area and crossed the Kankakee River, before descending to central Illinois, constructing Fort de Crevecoeur on Lake Peoria. La Salle then sent out a party led by Michel Aco, which included Hennepin, to explore the Upper Mississippi River.

The party descended the Illinois River (Seignelay F. on the map), then up the Mississippi River to beyond the confluence of the Wisconsin River, to Lake Pepin (the Lake of Tears), where they were captured by Indians on April 11, 1680. They were transported past the Falls of St. Anthony to the Lake Baude area, before being rescued by Daniel Greysolon Duluth (Tonty's cousin), who was then exploring the region. With Duluth, the party continued to Lake Mille Lac in northern Minnesota, where Duluth entered into a treaty with the Sioux Indians. Hennepin then returned to New France via the Falls of St. Anthony and returned to France, where he published his first book in January 1683.

Hennepin's map illustrates the territory through which La Salle had travelled and also the course of the Mississippi River as far south as the Arkansas River, which had been reached by Marquette and Jolliet. The present Italian edition retains the dotted line from the Arkansas southward found on the first edition of Hennepin's map, the supposed course of the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. The course of the river is corrected in the second edition of Hennepin's map, which however includes the remarkable mis-location of the river as flowing into the Gulf of Mexico near modern day Galveston Bay. The first edition of the map does not depict either the Ohio River or the Missouri River. This Italian edition refers to the Mississippi as the F. Colberto and Lake Erie is shown far south of its actual location.

Hennepin's book went through 2 further editions (1684 and 1688), which included the first edition of his map. After his exile from France, Hennepin wrote two further books, his Nouvelle Decouverte (1697) and Voyage d'un Pais plus grande que L'Europe (1698), both of which were published in Utrecht by Antoine Schoten.

First State of the Parma edition of the Map

The map in the present volume is the rare Parma edition, slightly different than the version that accompanied the 1686 Bologna edition of Hennepin's book. Burden has identified two states of this Parma edition, with the present example conforming to state 1 ("Pag. 423" at top right, inside the neat line). The Bologna map had a more elaborate cartouche, with a longer title: "Carta Della Nuova Francia e Della Luigiana Nuovamente Scoperta." See Burden entries 623 and 682, Bologna and Parma, respectively, for a full discussion.

Despite the reduction [of Hennepin's map] none of the detail is lost... - Burden.

Rarity

The work is extremely rare on the market.

This is apparently the only example to appear on the market since 1968.

Provenance:  PBA Galleries, 2021.