RICCI, Vincenzo.
Ragionamento intorno alla navigazione ed al commerzio di Vincenzo Ricci Giustinopolitano.
Padua, Giovambattista Penada, 1755.
4to, pp. clxix, [3]; with engraved nautical allegorical vignette to the title-page, and woodcut head- and tail-pieces; small worm track to gutter margins of first and last few leaves, some light damp staining; overall good in later vellum, title inked to spine; boards slightly bowed, a few marks, some worming to pastedowns.
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Ragionamento intorno alla navigazione ed al commerzio di Vincenzo Ricci Giustinopolitano.
First and only edition, rare, of the Venetian Vincenzo Ricci’s treatise on navigation and trade, the repository of much valuable information which the author, a scholar of maritime practice and law, had gathered in his assiduous frequentation of the archives in Venice, as well as in his direct and indirect experience of life at sea.
Ricci’s is an able and original attempt to organize a history of the expansion of Western colonialism. In his history techniques and technologies play a key role. The invention of the compass marks a turning point both in navigation and trade, and ample space is devoted to nautical construction, cartography, maps and their transforming impact on worldwide communications. Beside chapters on tides and shipping, Ricci looks at the effects of various instances of colonization on the colonizing country, in some cases venturing into well-argued, well-grounded and controversial historical claims, such as the precedence of the Venetian Alvise di Cadamosto over the Portuguese in the discovery of the Cape Verde islands. The last chapter, more specifically on trade, embraces mercantilist theories in advocating the pursuit of luxury goods for the Republic’s prosperity.
Einaudi 4758. Higgs 960. OCLC finds five copies in the US only, beside four in Italian libraries.
