112 - [Russia]. [BERGERON, Pierre]

[Russia]. [BERGERON, Pierre] Account of Journeys to Tartary [Followed by]. Treatise on the Tartars: Their Origin, Country, and People [Followed by]. A Summary of the History of the Saracens and Muslims. Paris: Michel Soly, 1634. 3 parts in 1 small 8vo volume, (6) ff., 466-(17) pp.; (6)-240 pp.; [8]-118 pp. (out of 119). Antique vellum, gilt and speckled, with imitation flaps or reattached (possibly 18th century), plain spine decorated with gilded panels, red title label (spine slightly tarnished, endpapers and final pages of the third volume missing, slight oxidation of the paper, minor marginal defects including wormholes). A rare first edition of this three-volume 17th-century work on Central Asia. It is a collection of French accounts from the major Christian embassies to the Mongol rulers in the 13th century, notably those of the Franciscan and Dominican friars Guillaume de Rubrouck, Jean du Plan Carpin, and Nicolas Ascelin, sent by Louis IX and Pope Innocent IV. The second part is a treatise devoted to the origin, customs, religion, and political organization of the Tartars; the third is a summary of the history of the Saracens and the Muslims. This copy bears marginal annotations in ink, either from the period or slightly later, in French and Arabic; the Arabic annotations notably provide transcriptions of the Romanized words in the text. Cordier, *Bibliotheca sinica*, [1941].