Viaggi di La Pérouse Intorno al Mondo

Attractive early Italian edition of La Pérouse's voyage, containing six charming coloured plates (three of which are not recorded in the standard bibliographies). The first of these unrecorded plates is a costume study captioned 'Uomo e Donna volgari della Concezione'; the second a view of Macao and the third depicts the death of botanist and savant Robert de Lamanon amidst a melée in Samoa during 1787. Neither Ferguson, Forbes nor McLaren note the three plates additional to the frontispieces. Forbes did not in fact manage to inspect a copy of the book. Ferguson cites his own copy, while McLaren consulted the Nan Kivell copy held by the National Library.

This edition was part of a larger collection of voyages published in uniform duodecimo format with the series title Biblioteca Istruttiva e Piacevole ovvero raccolta dei più interessanti viaggi. Forbes confirms that each of the voyages was available separately. The spines in this set number the volumes within the series.