Voyage fait a la Chine en 1665.

MACCLESFIELD COPY

First edition. One folding plate of Chinese characters, engraved portrait of Schall von Bell in lower margin of p. 23. Text in Italian, Latin, and French. Folio. 19th century half-calf by Hatton of Manchester.  Title dust-stained. Engraved exlibris of the Macclesfield library to front pastedown.  [ii], 23; 23pp.

Paris, Clousier & Cramoisy, 1673. 

This is the first Western eye-witness account of Lhasa and the second of Tibet after Antonio d' Andrade's account in 1626. The two Jesuits Johann Grüber (1623-1680) and Albert Comte d'Orville (1621-1662) were sent from Peking to Rome to defend Adam Schall in the rites controversy. Due to the armed military conflicts between the Dutch and the Portuguese affecting South East Asia (Macao was blockaded by the Dutch) the decided against the sea-route and instead followed the hitherto unexplored overland-route via Tibet, Agra, and on to Persia.

On April 13, 1661 they left Peking having joined a caravan to travel via Qinghai lake across the Tibetan highland and the Gangdise range towards Lhasa which they reached in early October. They spent close to two months there to recuperate and Grueber made several sketches of the Potala palace that were later published in Kircher's 'China Monumentis (1667). They set off again to cross the Himalayas via Nepal, Patna and Benares and reached Agra after just over three months where D'Orville died due to exhaustion on April 8th, 1662. Grüber continued on his way via Lahore, Multan Hormuz, and Persia, accompanied by another Jesuit who had been stationed in Agra, Heinrich Roth, and they finally reached Rome on February 20th 1664.

The present text is largely based on an interview Grueber had with an Italian Carlo Dati in Florence, and was printed as part of Thévenot's "Relations de divers voyages curieux" the fourth part of which was issued in Paris from 1672 onwards. This copy has a separately issued title-page and the date (1665) refers to the time of the conversation between Dati and Grueber, not the date of the journey. 

Provenance: Engraved exlibris of the Macclesfield library to front pastedown.

Title dust-stained.  Not in De Backer/Sommervogel.

Stock Code: 224298