Speculum orientalis occidentalisque Indiæ navigationum; Quarum una Georgij à Spilbergen classis cum potestate Præfecti, altera Iacobi le Maire auspicijs imperioque directa, Annis 1614, 15, 16, 17, 18. Exhibens Noui in mare Australe transitus, incognitarumque hactenus terrarum ac gentium inuentionê: prælia aliquot terra marique commissa, expugnationesq; vrbium: vna cum duabus nouis utriusque Indiæ Historijs, Catalogo munitionum Hollandicarum, ducum & reliqui bellici apparatus, Fretisque quatuor: suis quæque figuris ac imaginibus illustrata
SPILBERGEN’S VOC CIRCUMNAVIGATION,
BOUND WITH THE ARMS OF CHARLES I AS PRINCE OF WALES
Leiden: Nicolaes van Geelkercken for Jodocus Hondius, 1619. First edition in Latin.
Oblong quarto (7” x 9 11/16”, 179mm x 247mm): A-Y4 [$3 signed]. 88 leaves, pp. 1-8 (title, blank, 2pp. dedication to Pieter Schrijver,[2] verses, 2pp. list of illustrations, blank) 9-175, blank. With 25 engravings (plus an allegorical engraving on the title-page): 6 folding maps, 1 folding view and 18 views.
Bound in contemporary (pre-1625) panelled vellum with ties (renewed). Gilt supralibros of King Charles I as Prince of Wales within two double gilt fillet borders. Inner corner-ornaments of hearts set within scrollwork, outer corner-ornaments of thistle. On the spine, six panels separated by triple gilt fillets. Top and bottom edges of the text-block gilt (traces of gilding to the fore).
Small loss at the tail. Ties and end-papers renewed. Faint signs of damp along the upper edge to quire D, with mild tanning and a very little worming, just touching a few letters. Repaired worming to the central fold of the world map, and general repairs to the folds of other maps and views. Quires A and Y reinserted, with a split at X3,4.
Joris van Spilbergen (1568–1620) was in the first generation of explorers for the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC), beginning in fact in the company of one of its founders, Balthazar de Moucheron. After a successful voyage to the East Indies (particularly Kandy, modern Sri Lanka) in 1604, he was sent in August of 1614 by the newly-formed VOC to return via Brazil and the Straits of Magellan. Fighting along the way with the Spanish, particularly up the west coast of South America and up to Acapulco in Mexico, Spilbergen came to the East Indies in early 1616. In October of 1616 he encountered the expedition of Jacob Le Maire (son of Isaac, once a director of the VOC but driven out), who had sailed via the strait that would be named for him as part of the rival Australische Compagnie. Le Maire’s ships and booty were seized and sent along with Spilbergen’s fleet, returning to the Netherlands in July of 1617.
The present work,[1] likely edited by Nicolaes van Geelkercken and doubtless illustrated by him, combines the accounts of rivals Spilbergen and Le Maire. The engravings, including the particularly celebrated world map showing the routes of Spilbergen (and Le Maire, before being subsumed), are unusually well-integrated with the text, with keys specifying aspects of the images. Beside the valuable records of individual harbors and coastlines, the work is profoundly entertaining, with its tales of battles by day and night against the Spanish, coastal raids and other feats of swashbuckling.
Books bound with the arms of a sovereign — or, as here, a future sovereign — always raise the question of ownership: was this owned by Charles I (r. 1625–1649) as Prince of Wales,[3] presented by him to someone else, or simply bound by a staunch royalist? The stamp used (his stamp no. 04 in the British Armorial Bindings database) excludes the last; its use on an example of Rosa Hispani-Anglica, which was dedicated to him as Prince of Wales, now in the British Library (C.46.f.1.), suggests that he may have used it personally. In the year of his accession to the throne, Charles I concluded three military agreements with the Netherlands: two for naval warfare (the second explicitly against the Spanish), one against the Austrian Hapsburgs. Thus the present volume may well have been to hand as he considered the consequences of those alliances. At the very least it will have amused the prince.
Alden & Landis 619/133; Borba de Moraes II:276; Landwehr, VOC 391; Sabin 89450.
[1] Rendered into English: “Mirror of navigations in the East and West Indies; one of which a fleet with Joris van Spilbergen in command, the other undertaken under the auspices and command of Jacob Le Maire, in the years 1614-1618. Showing the New route into the South Sea, and the discovery of hitherto unknown lands and people; some battles pitched on land and sea, and the storming of cities; together with two new histories of both Indies, a catalogue of Dutch fortifications, leaders and other means of war; and of the four straights. Each illustrated with figures and illustrations.”
[2] Alias Petrus Scriverius or Graef.
[3] The royal arms differenced by a by a label of three points argent (although no attempt is made to indicate metal or tincture in the supralibros). Similar stamps were used by Charles II as Prince of Wales but not, apparently, this one.
Item #JLR0707
Price: $39,000