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This book presents a newly discovered text of which only one copy has survived in the Dresden State Art Collections (Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, Münzkabinett). It was dedicated to the Duke of Saxony Johann Georg III. and published in 1686 as a private print under the title "Short explanation of the most prominent rarities in East India and the neighbouring kingdoms". The author Caspar Schamberger (1623-1706) had worked in Asia for twelve years as a surgeon on VOC ships and in Dutch trading posts. He is known as the "father" of the first fully-fledged Western-style medical school in Japan. His text describes fruits, plants, animals, ethnic groups, coins etc. from Persia to Japan including the Khoikhoi (Khoisan) in Southern Africa. This is one of the earliest Western accounts of these matters based on observations made during the late 1640s and 1650s. The extensive commentary (126 pages) gives an outline of Schamberger's life presenting numerous new information on his activities after his return to Leipzig in 1658. Schamberger's descriptions are analysed in detail within the context of similar accounts of nine contemporary German travellers: Caspar Schmalkalden, Zacharias Wagener, Heinrich Muche, Johann Wilhelm Vogel, Elias Hesse, Albrecht Herport, George Meister, Andreas Cleyer, Engelbert Kaempfer. Forty-six illustrations selected from Western and Japanese sources proviede the iconographic background. |
