From Asia Minor to Iraq and back
SESTINI, Domenico. Le guide du voyageur en Égypte, ou, Description des végétaux et des minéraux qui existent en Égypte [second part, beginning on p. 213]: Retour de Bassora a Constantinople, par l'Euphrate, Bagdad, Alep, Chypre et Alexandrie, en 1782. Paris: Ches les Marchands de Nouveautés an 11 [1803].
8vo. Contemporary full tree calf, spine ornamented in gilt and with red morocco lettering-piece, boards with gilt double rule, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers; pp. [4], [ii]-vi (erroneous pagination), 332, folding woodcut map; a near fine copy with later 19th-century bookplate Senfft inside front cover.
Re-issue, very rare, of the first French translation of 1798 with altered title, using the original sheets. The paper used by the Paris printer is that specially produced for 20 Francs assignat notes; our issue has the same core collation and the watermark confirms the use of assignat paper.
The editio princeps of this text had come out in Yverdon in two volumes, published in 1786 and 1788 under the title Viaggio di ritorno da Bassora a Costantinopoli. All editions of Sestini's Middle East travelogues are very hard to find. 'These travels took place in 1781-2 and describe a journey through the interior of Asia Minor via Nicomedia, Tokat and Diarbekir. From that point the travellers followed a then little known route: by the Tigris from Diarbekir via Baghdad and crossing overland at certain points to continue their descent by the Euphrates to Bassora. The return journey was made from Alexandria via Cyprus, Aleppo and Baghdad. Sestini travelled in company with John Sullivan of the East India Company …' (Blackmer 1530, on the first French issue).
Domenico Sestini (1750-1832), an antiquary, early archaeologist and numismatist was one of most relentless travellers of the 1770s and '80s, covering the area between the Balkans, the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, Iraq and Egypt. In this work he describes the journey through Asia Minor to Iraq, where he spent quite some time in Diarbakir and surroundings, observing the ethnic mix, architecture, caravan trade, vegetation and food on offer, and how the city is functioning politically and economically.
Provenance: Senfft von Pilsach family, one member of which was a diplomat for Metternich.
Blackmer 1531 ('the new title has of this edition has little connection with the text'); Quérard IX, 98; See Atabey 1126 for part one only of the editio princeps (no French translation).
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