CHINA - Athanasius KIRCHER (1602-80). La Chine, Amsterdam, 1670, folio, additional engraved title, 2 maps, 22 plates, 61 illustrations (lacking the portrait, some spotting and staining), contemporary vellum. FIRST FRENCH EDITION.

CHINA - Athanasius KIRCHER (1602-80).  La Chine ... Illustrée De plusieurs Monuments Tant Sacrés que Profanes, et de quantité de Recherchés de la Nature & de l' Art. A Quoy on à adjousté de nouveau les questions curieuses que le Serenissime Grand Duc de Toscane a fait depuis peu au P. Jean Grubere touchant ce grand Empire. Avec un Dictionaire Chinois & Franois, lequel est tres-rare, & qui n' a pas encores paru as jour. Traduit par F. S. Dalquié. Amsterdam: "Ches Jean Jansson a Waesberge, & les Heritiers d' Elizee Weyerstraet," 1670. Folio (366 x 245mm). Additional engraved allegorical title dated 1667, woodcut device on printed title, 2 double-page engraved maps, 22 engraved plates including 8 with engraved letterpress, one double-page, one folding, and 61 engraved illustrations, the text printed in double column, initials and ornaments (lacking the portrait of the author, some fraying to the engraved title without loss, some marginal staining to the printed title with closed repaired tear at foot and some minor fraying without loss, [?]printing flaw affecting the margin of one plate, one plate with piece of margin torn away, variable mainly marginal spotting and staining). Contemporary full vellum, the spine lettered and ruled in gilt, red edges (light stain to head of spine). Provenance: The Honourable Hugh Howard (armorial bookplate). THE FIRST EDITION IN FRENCH of this "important source of information on the beginnings of western sinology and sinophilism in Europe" (Szczesniak). First published in Latin in 1667, Kircher's hugely influential and ground-breaking work contains some of the earliest accounts of the geography, botany, zoology, religion, mythology and language of China. It was also the first western work to include a vocabulary of Chinese and the first to include reproductions of the Sanskrit alphabet and grammar. Brunet II, 771; Cordier Sinica I, 26-27; De Backer & Sommervogel IV, 1064; Lust 38; Morrison II, 38. See Baleslaw Szczesniak's Athanasius Kircher's China Illustrata (History of Science Society, 1952, 10: 385-411).