Re-issue under a new title of the first edition of this extensive work on India, Southeast Asia and China, which was a originally printed in Rome, by Michele Hercole in 1669. The printer Felice Cesaretti only replaced the title and preliminaries. At the end of vol. 2 there is the original 'Registro' giving the sequence of the quires including the quires of the preliminaries, and with the imprint 'In Roma, per Michele Hercole. 1669', with a slip of paper with the year '1676' pasted over the original year.
The Benedictine abbot Clemente Tosi (Tonsus) destined his huge work for the missionaries in India, continental Southeast Asia and China. It is a handbook designed to provide missionaries with background and arguments enough to confute idolatry, superstitions and 'errors' of the gentiles. The first volume treats India proper and is based on the Jesuit letter-books and on Manrique's work. The second volume deals with the continental countries from India eastward to southern China. The accounts on Arakan, Pegu, and Burma depend heavily on Manrique. His materials on China and Indochina were amplified by the publication at Rome, also in 1669, of an Italian translation of the account of the voyages made to eastern Asia in the early 1660's by the three French bishops sent there by Pope Alexander VII as vicars apostolic, written by François Pallu.
Occasionally browned and foxed, overall in good condition. Lach- & van der Kley III, p. 384.