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A collection of curious travels & voyages. In two tomes. The first containing Dr. Leonhart Rauwolff's intinerary into the eastern countries, as Syria, Palestine, or the Holy Land, Armenia, Mesopotamina, Assyria... Translated from the High Dutch by Nicholas Staphorst. The second taking in many parts of Greece, Asia Minor, Egypt, Arabia Felix... from the observations of Mons. Belon, Mr. Vernon, Dr. Spon, Dr. Smith, Dr Huntingdon, Mr Greaves, Alpinus, Veslingius, Thevenot's collections, and others. To which are added, three catalogues of such trees, shrubs, and herbs as grow in the Levant.

John Ray (1627-1705)
London: Printed for S. Smith and B. Walford, 1693

Rare Books & Special Collections
Strong Room Collection RB 910.8 R26

We thank our donor...

Conservation treatment of A collection of curious travels & voyages... was funded through the generosity of an anonymous donor in April 2019.

Synopsis

Leonhard Rauwolf (1535–1596)

German physician, botanist and traveller, Rauwolf (also spelled Rauwolff), studied botany and medicine at the University of Montpellier and the University of Valence, before establishing his own medical practice in Bavaria in 1565.

In 1573 he set out on a three-year journey, made possible by his brother-in-law, Melchior Manlich, who hoped Rauwolf would return with new plants and drugs that could be traded by the Manlich firm.  Rauwolf travelled first to Marseilles, then on to Tripoli in Lebanon, before arriving in Aleppo, Syria, where he remained for some time.  From there, he journeyed to Baghdad and Mosul in 1574 and back to Aleppo and Tripoli, and eventually on to Jerusalem.  Recording his observations along the way, Rauwolf would become the first European botanist of the post-medieval era to travel to Syria and Mesopotamia.

Although he made important botanical notes, Rauwolf also documented his personal impressions of the people, customs and sights of the Levantine region.[1]  These he published in a book, Aigentliche Beschreibung der Raiβ in die Morgenländerin, the English translation of which was published in 1693 by John Ray in A collection of curious travels & voyages…

John Ray (1627–1705)

Essex-born naturalist, Ray (also spelled Wray) studied at Braintree Grammar School, before entering the University of Cambridge and Trinity College at the age of sixteen.  He spent much of his time in the study of natural history, making prosperous friends, such as Francis Willoughby, along the way.

In the 1960s Ray and Willoughby embarked on an ambitious project together, with the aim of producing a study of the complete natural history of living things.  They toured Europe from 1663 to 1666, collecting specimens upon which to base systematic descriptions of both the plant and animal kingdoms.  Ray was to assume responsibility for the former and Willoughby, the latter.  The pair gleaned an enormous amount of first-hand knowledge from the expedition, and Ray set to work immediately up his return, producing a catalogue of plants, Catalogus Plantarum Angliae, in 1670.  Just two years later, and rather unexpectedly, Willoughby died, leaving Ray to finalise his portion of the project.  In 1676 Ray published Francisci Willughbeii de Middleton… Ornithologiae libri tres… and continued to use the botanical specimens for his own Methodus Plantarum Nova (1682) and the masterpiece Historia Generalis Plantarum (3 vols. between 1686-1704).

During his lifetime, Ray produced more than 20 works, including his compilation of Rauwolf’s travels, to which he added his own catalogues of oriental plants.  His legacy to botany lies in his relentless pursuit of correct classification, essentially making Carl Linnaeus’ development of taxonomy possible in the following century.

A Collection of Curious Travels & Voyages…

Essentially two volumes in one, A collection of curious travels… comprises Leonhart Rauwolf’s itinerary into the eastern countries, including Syria, Palestine (the Holy Land), Armenia, Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Chaldea (Babylonia).  His aim, in producing the book, as he describes on page 2, was not only to observe the lives, manners and customs of the people he encountered along the way but to “gain a clear and distinct knowledge of those delicate herbs… by viewing them in their proper native places, partly that I might more exactly describe them, especially the most strange and rare; partly also, to provoke the Apothecaries to endeavour to procure those that are necessary for them to have in the shops…”.  Over three parts, and a total of 45 chapters, Rauwolf left no stone unturned, documenting famous cities and their buildings; men and women and their employment; customs and clothing; plants he had collected; trading and dealing; meats and drinks; animals he had encountered; navigational issues; the murdering of merchants; Turkish religion, and so much more…  The book is eloquently edited and translated by English botanist, John Ray.

The second volume of A collection of curious travels… contains observations made by several learned and famous men in their journeys through the Levant region, including the Isle of Candy, Greece, Egypt, Asia Minor, the Red Sea, etc. by Monsieur Pierre Belon, Prosper Alpinus, Dr. Huntingdon, Mr. Vernon, Sir George Wheeler, Dr. Thomas Smith, Mr. John Greaves, and others.  Contents of note include a narrative of a caravan journey from Cairo to Mecca, and a trip through Arabia and Syria.

The final component of A collection of curious travels… consists of three catalogues of oriental plants growing in Syria, Crete and Egypt.  It is noted that this catalogue did not make it into all copies of the book and regrettably the Library’s copy omits Ray’s important catalogue.

Footnotes:

[1] ‘Leonhard Rauwolf’, Wikipedia, 9 January 2019, accessed online 17 April 2019

Original Condition

Calf binding with prior cloth repair to spine, front and rear covers, and pastedowns.  Significant loss of leather at the board corners and along the front board edge.  Spine bumped at both head and tail, with headband missing entirely from the former.  Textblock split at title page, and rear end paper detached.  Requires corner consolidation, recovering with leather at corners and board edges, plus rebacking.

Restoration by Anthony Zammit

Prior blue cloth repair removed from spine, cover and pastedowns, and new spine lining created.  Remains of original leather spine saved and reapplied to new, custom-dyed leather spine.  Cover leather, damaged by the cloth, dyed to match the original.  Separating board corners consolidated with PVA and new calf inserted underneath existing cover, around the corners and along the front board edge. Cloth removed from pastedowns, and inner hinges strengthened with Japanese repair paper.  Detached title page tipped back on with starch paste.