Voyage historique d'Abissinie. Traduite du Portugais, continuée & augmentée de plusieurs dissertations, lettres & mémoires. Par M. Le Grand, prieur de Neuville-les-Dames et de Prevessin.

4to: xiv-[2]-514-[10] pp.; front. and 2 pl. (sm. marg. damp stain, margins of title browned, front. disbound, occ. foxing).

Contemp. marbled sheep, gilt-orn. spine with raised bands, red spr. edges (part of leather unstuck from front board, sm. part of leather missing from lower board, parts +/- rubbed, long scratch on front cover, sm. stains on front cover, front joint part. split).

First French translation by Le Grand (1st Portuguese 1659) based on the manuscript in the collection Count Ericeira. The work contains the account of Lobo (136 pp., preceded by a biography of the Jesuit) and also +/- 25 various documents on Ethiopia, its customs, religion, Prester John's Kingdom, the Queen of Sheba, etc. written by various authors. Illustrated with a front. and 2 fold. maps (Eritrea-Ethiopia by Desbruslins and the coasts of Mozambique-Tanzania by d'Anville). Lobo (1595-1678) joined in 1624 the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries to convert Ehtiopia to catholicism but the mission was a fail and they were expulsed in 1634. In 1640 he returned to India where he became provincial of the Jesuits at Goa. After some years, he returned to Lisbon.
Ref. Gay 2657. - DBS IV:1869.