Travel
[GENOA.]
Tariffa generale de'pesi, & misure d'Asia, Africa, & Europa. Necessaria a mercanti.
Genova, per Pier Gio: Calenzani ... ad instanza di Bartolomeo de Benedetti. [1641.] . First edition. Small 8vo (9.5 x 14.5cm) 88pp., title-page with woodcut of a ship approaching the Pillars of Hercules, title-page and last leaf dusty, some negligible waterstaining and a few small marginal tears and marks, not affecting text, eighteenth century painted boards, edges painted black.
This rare pocket book is one of the principal sources for comparing the mercantile measures used in the Mediterranean and Levant in the early modern period. Printed in 1641 for the benefit of the seafaring merchants of Genoa it enabled the conversion of local weights and measures into a diversity of foreign units. In addition to the metrologies of a wide variety of Italian city-states and neighbouring European countries, there is an abundance of information on those of many Levantine and African locations, including Constantinople, Aleppo, Tripoli, Damascus, Fez, Dalmatia and Algiers. Among the commodities listed are wine, oil, silk, iron, wool, peppercorns, wheat and hemp. The preface, written by Bartolomeo de Benedetti, notes that this work was published previously by one "Gieronimo Zovo" - if that is the case then that previous edition is not known to survive. Comparable with the work Tariffa de i pesi e misure: corrispondenti dal Levante al Ponente... (1503) by the Venetian merchant Bartolomeo di Pasi, this book provides a rich mine of information for the history of the metrologies of the Mediterranean and the Levant. COPAC records only one copy (UCL). Not traced in ICCU, Goldsmiths' or Kress.
Price: £ 2250
US Dollar Price: $ 4470
Stock Number: 77388