Voyage fait par ordre du Roy Louis XIV dans la Palestine, vers le Grand Emir, Chef des Princes Arabes du Desert, connus sous le nom de Bedoüins, ou d'Arabes Scenites [...] Ou il est traité des Moeurs & des Coutumes de cette Nation. Avec la Description generale de l'Arabie, faite par le Sultan Ismaël Abulfeda, traduite en François sur les meilleurs Manuscripts, avec des Notes. Par Monsieur D.L.R.

12mo (163x98 mm). [32], 316, [2], XIV, 76, [16] pp. and [4] engraved plates (one folding). Contemporary calf, spine richly gilt with lettering piece, red sprinkled edges (corners and joints repaired, worn and rubbed). On the front padtedown bookplate “Aldo Maffey”. Slightly uniformly browned, occasional marginal foxing.

First edition, edited Jean de la Roque (1661-1745), who also signs the dedication to the judge, government official, and politician Hilaire Rouillé du Coudray (1651-1729), of this early eyewitness account on Arabia and the Arabian Bedouins, which contains a description of Arabia, Mecca, Sanaa, Oman, and Bahrain.

Laurent d'Arvieux was a French traveller and diplomat. His relationship with the Middle East began when he worked as a merchant in the Ottoman port of Smyrna, before he undertook a journey through the Levant in 1658. At the time, he was one of the few Europeans who could speak Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Hebrew and Syriac fluently.

“The first part of this work is an account of d'Arvieux's mission to the Arabs of Mt. Carmel in 1664, together with a general discussion of the customs of the nomadic Arabs. The second part, Description générale de l'Arabie, has been translated for the first time into French by the editor La Roque from the Arabic of Ismael Abulfeda [Abū al-Fidāʾ, 1273-1331]” (Blackmer, 50).

The plates show an Arab knight, the great emir of the desert Arabs, the Arab encampment on Mount Carmel, and the princess wife the great emir.

Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\TO0E\135247; Atabey, 38.

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