Morisot - Orbis Maritimi - 1643

23 MAPS AND THE GREAT ROMAN NAUMACHIA - SHIPS, PORTS, COLONIES, LAWS AND NAVAL BATTLES
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION - AMERICA, MAGELLAN, THE GREAT NAVIGATIONS
First and only edition of the monumental Orbis Maritimi by Claude-Barthélemy Morisot, published in Dijon in 1643, one of the widest and most ambitious seventeenth-century works entirely devoted to the history of the sea, sailing, and maritime powers. The volume reconstructs in encyclopedic form the relationship between man and the sea from classical antiquity to the age of great oceanic explorations, addressing ships, fleets, naval battles, ports, armaments, colonies, maritime law, navigation, winds, tides, and oceanographic phenomena. The work is organized into two large books of fifty chapters each: the first mainly devoted to the ancient world, the second to modern navigation and the progressive European expansion across the oceans. The exceptional apparatus of figures includes an allegorical engraved title page, 23 geographical maps, numerous depictions of ships, boats, coins and medals, and especially the famous large folded table of the Roman naumachia, one of the most spectacular images of maritime antiquarianism of the XVII century. Sections devoted to Arctic explorations, Walter Raleigh, Magellan, and the Americas are particularly important.

WHY TO BUY
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION – DIJON 1643! A monument of seventeenth-century naval historiography.
23 MAPS + FAMOUS FOLDED NAUMACHIA! An extraordinary cartographic and iconographic apparatus.
FROM ROMAN FLEETS TO AMERICA! Ancient navigations, Raleigh, Magellan, Arctic and great oceanic discoveries.
AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE SEA! Ships, ports, battles, maritime laws, colonies and naval culture gathered in a single great volume.

MARKET VALUE
Orbis Maritimi of 1643 belongs to the most important tier of maritime and naval bibliography of the XVII century. The first and only edition is particularly sought after when it preserves the entire iconographic and cartographic apparatus, as the 23 maps and especially the large naumachia plate are elements easily subject to separation or dispersion over time. For a complete and well-preserved specimen, a realistic retail value is around €4,000-5,000, with potential for higher offers for copies especially fresh, with wide margins and significant provenance.

PHYSICAL / CONDITION - COLLECTOR'S COPY
IN FOLIO - Pp. (2), 24 nn., 726, 18 nn., (2). Frontispiece printed in red and black; allegorical engravéd frontispiece within an elaborate architectural frame with personifications, sea deities, anchors, shells and a naval scene. A large double-page folded copper-engraved plate depicting a Roman naumachia; 1 full-page engraving; 23 geographical maps engraved; 11 iconographic plates devoted to coins and medals, in addition to other illustrations in the text. Contemporary or near-contemporary half-mrown morocco binding with marbled boards, ribbed spine with morocco label and gilt title, signs of wear. Some foxing, browning and normal age traces to maps. Old provenance stamp “Carthusiae Villenovae” on the frontispiece, presumably related to a Carthusian library of Villeneuve. As with all old volumes, slight defects or restorations not explicitly mentioned may be present.

FULL TITLES & AUTHORS
Claude-Barthélemy Morisot (1592-1661).
Orbis maritimi sive Rerum in mari et littoribus gestarum generalis historia.
Divione: apud Petrum Palliot, 1643.
FIRST AND ONLY EDITION.
Pp. (2), 24 nn., 726, 18 nn., (2).
With allegorical frontispiece, large folded naumachia, 23 maps and numerous naval and numismatic illustrations.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Claude-Barthélemy Morisot (Dijon, 1592-1661) was a jurist, scholar, historian and French man of letters, a representative figure of Burgundian culture of the early seventeenth century. He cultivated vast interests, from classical antiquity to history, from geography to navigation, and in the Orbis Maritimi he sought to unite this erudition in a project of extraordinary ambition: to reconstruct a true universal history of man at sea. Morisot uses classical sources, medieval chronicles, travel accounts, cartographic materials and modern testimonies, building a synthesis that crosses civilizations, eras and oceans. His originality lies precisely in the ability to view the sea not merely as a stage for battles, but as a political, economic, technical and cultural space in which trade, explorations, empires, legislation and new geographic knowledge develop. The Orbis Maritimi remains his most ambitious work and one of the earliest encyclopedic syntheses of European maritime civilization.

RARITY
The Orbis Maritimi is a rare and particularly desirable work when it retains its richly illustrated apparatus in full. The nature of the first and only edition further increases its bibliographic value. The 23 maps, the large folded naumachia plate, the naval depictions and the numismatic series were elements easily separable and often dispersed over time, making complete copies especially valuable. The work also holds broad interdisciplinary appeal: naval history, cartography, explorations, antiquarian studies, America, history of science and the culture of the Grand Siècle converge in a single volume. The presence of Provenance from a Carthusian library adds further historical charm to the specimen.

HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE
The Orbis Maritimi occupies an exceptional position in the history of naval literature because it attempts one of the first truly universal treatments of mankind’s relationship with the sea. Morisot addresses not only shipbuilding and naval warfare, but also ports, colonies, maritime law, navigation, tides, winds, oceanographic phenomena and great explorations. The first part reconstructs the ancient maritime world, while the second follows the oceanic expansion of European powers. Especially important are the pages dedicated to the Arctic, Raleigh’s endeavors, Magellan and the Americas, accompanied by three maps. The famed Naumachiae id est navalis pugnae visualizes the spectacle of Roman naval warfare with extraordinary antiquarian and scenographic force. The work thus represents a bridge between classical scholarship and the new global geography of the Seicento, showing how the history of the sea had become an essential part of universal history.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sabin, Bibliotheca Americana, no. 50723.
Borba de Moraes, Bibliographia Brasiliana, II, pp. 597-598.
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, Supplément, 1122.
Alden & Landis, European Americana, 643/185.
USTC 6810141.
Claude-Barthélemy Morisot, Orbis Maritimi, Dijon, Pierre Palliot, 1643.
Repertori bibliografici devoted to naval history, cartography and geographical explorations of the XVII century.