THE ASCENT OF MOUNT ST. ELIAS [ALASKA] BY H.R.H. PRINCE LUIGI AMEDEO DI SAVOIA, DUKE OF THE ABRUZZI. London, 1900, 1st edition. 241 pp, 34 plates, ills, maps. TEG. Photos by Sella, etc. A magnificent book, the finest on any North American climb. This expedition succeeded in the first ascent of St. Elias. In the original green cloth, bright and handsome, Fine condition. All copies of this book need binding repair as the original Gutta Percha glue that bound them has dried out in the last 100 years. This copy has loose pages and need to be recased, it hasminor edge wear, but is bright and Near Fine and would be fine after re-gluing the pages.
Luigi Amedeo di Savoy, the Duke of Abruzzi [1873 - 1933] was born in Madrid to the then king of Spain also a Savoy, who abdicated his throne only a few weeks after his son's birth and returned to Italy. When he was six years old, young Luigi was assigned to the Italian Navy and received his entire education in military schools. A man of great energy and imagination, at the age of 24 he organised and led the expedition that made the first ascent of Mount St Elias [5,484 metres] in Alaska in 1897. Two years later he led an expedition to the North Pole which reached a latitude 86^34' north, a new record at the time. In 1906 he led the Rwenzori expedition which climbed all the major peaks and made the most extensive exploration of the range before or since. A few years later, in 1909, he organised an expedition to the Karakoram and set the record to the highest altitude yet achieved by ascending the second highest mountain in the world, K2, to a height of about 7,500 metres [24,600 feet], along the route that today bears his name, the Abruzzi ridge.
Vittorio Sella [1859 - 1943]
He was the Italian alpinist and photographer who accompanied the 1906 Abruzzi Rwenzori expedition and who was perhaps the greatest of all alpine photographers. It was Sella who first recorded the landscape, plants and people of the Rwenzori in extensive and intimate detail, and to whom we refer for clarity of the historical record and pure artistic beauty. It is particularly interesting to note how far the glaciers of the Rwenzori have receded since these photographs were taken, nearly 90 years ago. Vittorio Sella was born in Biella, Italy, to father who was a successful textile industrialist and scientist ad who, in 1856, had been the first Italian to write a treatise on photography. Vittorio owed his interest in the mountains to his uncle, Quintino, founder of the Alpine Club of Italy. As a young man, Vittorio had worked as a chemist in his father's textile factory, but it was his passion for taking beautiful panoramic photographs of the mountains which made him famous. From 1880 to 1893 he compiled a detailed portfolio of the Alps, combining his photography with impressive alpinism, such as the first winter traverse of the Matterhorn in 1882. He made three expeditions to the Caucasus, in 1889, 1890 and 1896, for which his photography received awards from Britain's Royal Geographical Society. In 1899 he accompanied his friend the alpinist D. W. Freshfield on a difficult exploration of Kanchenjunga in Sikkim. The Duke of Abruzzi greatly admired Sella's work and invited him to be the official photographer for the expeditions in 1897 to Mount St Elias in Alaska, in 1909 to the Karakoram. The highest summit on Mount Luigi di Savoia in the Rwenzori was named Sella Peak in his honour.
