PASI, Bartolomeo.
Tariffa de i pesi, e misure corrispondenti dal Levante al Ponente: e da una terra, e luogo allaltro, quasi p[er] tutte le parti dil mondo: con la dichiaratione, e notificatione di tutte le robbe: che si tragono di uno paese per laltro ... Con la sua tavola copiosissima, e facilissima a trovare ogni cosa per ordine.
Venice, (colophon: Pietro di Nicolini da Sabbio), 1540. 8vo. With the title in an architectural woodcut border. 17th-century limp sheepskin parchment. [11], [1 blank] 200 ll.
€ 12,000
Third edition of a practical handbook for international merchants, giving information for the conversion of monetary units, weights and measures from countries in the Mediterranean and Near East. It covers not only units from cities in the Italian states but also from Constantinople (Istanbul), Aleppo, Tripoli, Damascus, Cyprus, Corfu, Rhodes and Crete. Venice was at this time the centre of European trade with the Near and Middle East and the present work is invaluable as a record of the panoply of commodities traded in the Mediterranean at the beginning of the 16th century, including pearls, silks, wool, saffron, chestnuts, figs, galangal, vegetable oils, gold and silver. On leaves 3, 11, and 12, Pasi records the tariffs on pearls in Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, Alexandria, Constantinople and Venice.
With a few contemporary manuscript annotations. The preliminary matter foxed and the bookblock slightly trimmed, shaving some of the manuscript annotations, otherwise in very good condition. Adams P374; ICCU PUVE 000093; Kress 51; Smith, Rara arithmetica, p. 79; cf. R. A. Donkin, Beyond price: pearls and pearl fishing (1998), p. 138.
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