View of a vessel, Mandarin, etc., of China

Jan Huygen van Linschoten, 1596:
Lectuli, et ratio, quibus Chine...Excellent. 10 x 13 inches. $350.

Jan Huygen van Linschoten was an adventurer who accompanied a Portuguese vessel to India. In 1572, when Linschoten was about ten years old, the Spanish subdued Haarlem, and the Linschoten family moved to the active seaport of Enkhuizen, where Spanish control was weaker. Despite the wars between Holland and Spain, the two countries still maintained a commercial relationship, and when Linschoten was sixteen he traveled to Spain and Portugal. In 1583 he got passage from Lisbon around Africa and on to southern Asia, living for five years in Goa. Although he never traveled to Southeast Asia, he had a keen interest in the region, and recorded a great deal of information about it while in Goa. His Reysgheschift, published in 1595, recorded explicit sailing directions he had garnered from Portuguese rutters for entering the Indian Ocean by way of the Cape of Good Hope. But his more famous work is the Itinerario, which quickly became a standard text for Indies-bound pilots, and is among our most important sources for Southeast Asia during the sixteenth century. Linschotens Itinerario made details of the formerly mysterious world of the Portuguese Indies easily available to anyone with the dream and the initiative to venture to the East. Further, Linschoten provided the geographic key to unlocking the Portuguese grip on passage through the Malacca Strait: Linschoten advocated approaching the Indies from the south of Sumatra through the Sunda Strait, thereby minimizing the danger of Portuguese notice or reprisal.