[Travel - Navy]. THEVET (André). Cosmography of the Levant. Lyon, Jean de Tournes and Guillaume Gazeau, 1554. In-4° of 214-[15]-1bl.-2bl. pages, olive calf, triple gilt fillets on the boards, interior roulette, spine with ornate nerves, red edges (binding of the XIX°). "This volume is rare; it is moreover a masterpiece of typography, and the remarkable figures of the Petit Bernard must assure him a place among the precious books" (Cartier). ORIGINAL EDITION of the first work of the Franciscan traveler André Thevet (1516-1590), who was visiting Italy when he met the Cardinal of Lorraine in Piacenza, who gave him the means to go to Constantinople, where he arrived in November 1549. He left from there to visit the islands of the Mediterranean East, Egypt, Palestine and Asia Minor, as he indicates in his epistle: "Not only the peregrination made in the Holy Land, which is common enough to the Christians, but also the discourse of the voyage of Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Mount Sinai, Iudaea, until Antioch and Armenia and several islands so fertile as sterile". This travel report is illustrated with 27 SUPERB WOODEN FIGURES, including the author's portrait at the end, all by Petit Bernard (Athenians killing wolves, crocodile chasing a man, pygmies fighting cranes, hippodrome in Constantinople, giraffe driven by a man, pyramid of Egypt, etc.). One of the most famous illustrations of this work is the Colossus of Rhodes. On his return, Thevet passed through Lyon and it is then, undoubtedly, that he made a deal with Jean de Tournes for the printing of his volume. Hinges worn, hinges badly cracked, title-piece missing, rings in bottom margin and marginal repair at bottom of one leaf. (Harvard 515 - Brun p. 300-301 - Brunet VI, 814 - Adams, II, 621 - USTC - Cartier n°287 - Rothschild II, 1931).