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Voyage Around the World, travelogue (in German)

1488
John Mandeville

"This is one of the earliest illustrated editions of Jean de Mandeville's “travels”, it is of the utmost rarity like all German incunabular editions of this travelogue. The popular travelogue is, purporting, an account of a young knight, Sir Jean Mandeville, from Saint Albans who left Britain in 1322 and spent the next thirty-four years travelling to the Holy Land and beyond. Visiting the Arabian Peninsula and Palestine before continuing to India, Tibet, China, Java, and Sumatra, then returning westward to Egypt and North Africa.
This book, a work of the canon of Metz, Otto von Diemeringen (d. 1398), is one of the first illustration series published by the Prüss workshop.The quarter to half page illustrations present the whole range of the realities and wonders described by Mandeville: Holy and fabulous sites of the East, their inhabitants and their script; also monsters, exotic animals and plants. Unlike editions in other languages, the German editions, however, contained woodcuts from the very beginning.

Compiled from various sources in the mid-14th century, probably originally in French, the travel survives in around 300 manuscripts and was translated into at least ten languages, making the Mandeville narrative one of the most popular secular texts prior to the invention of printing. His adventures toward the East were accepted as true throughout the Middle Ages and set the stage for the entire genre or travel literature."

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Department of Culture and Tourism - Abu Dhabi

Artist: John Mandeville
Title: Voyage Around the World, travelogue (in German)
Geography: Strasbourg, France
Date: 1488
Medium: printed book on paper , Ink on paper
Classification: printing works (printed books, bills, wall papers...)
Dimensions: 197.0 x 260.0 mm
Inventory number: LAD 2019.010
Contact for images: [email protected]
Permalink: https://www.louvreabudhabi.ae/en/Explore/online-collection/voyage-around-the-world-travelogue
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