{"title":"Americana","description":"\u003cp\u003eEditions exploring the culture, history, traditions, and values of the Americas.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"danti-egnatio","title":"DANTI, Egnatio","description":"First edition of Egnatio Danti s translation of Proclus   Sfera  and his companion treatise on the use of the sphere, and second edition of Piccolomini s treatise on the proportions respectively of water and dry land of the Earth. According to Graesse there was a 1540 edition of the latter, but from Ziletti s dedication a Venetian senator, it is clear that the book was first published in 1558. Houzeau \u0026amp; Lancaster lists a  very rare  1571 first edition of Danti s translation and treatise, but it is probably confusing the latter with Danti s commentary upon the translation of Sacrobosco s  Tractatus de Spaera  made by his grandfather Pier Vincenzo Rainaldi (called  Dante  after the author of the  Divine Comedy ) and first published in 1571. Egnatio Danti (1536-86), referred to as  Cosmographer of the Grand Duke of Tuscany  on these title-pages, was an outstanding scientist who taught at Pisa and Bologna, drew maps for Cosimo de  Medici, designed a number of astronomical instruments (two of which were set up in Santa Maria Novella, Florence), brought about the reformation of the Gregorian calendar after having detected a 11-day error, wrote the first book to be published in Italy on the astrolabe (1569), and was appointed Papal Cosmographer and Mathematician by Gregory XIII (1580). His translation of Proclus   Sfera , dedicated to Isabella de  Medici, opens with a two-page life of Proclus and contains long and detailed annotations, often flanked by diagrams, for each of the fifteen chapters of the book. It ends with a five-page essay on how to study the stars without using scientific instruments. Proclus (412-485), illustrious Neo-Platonic philosopher from Constantinople, was also a fine astronomer who expounded the division of the celestial sphere with modern accuracy. Danti s treatise on the use of the sphere is divided into thirty short chapters dealing with, i.a., how to make a sphere, determine the various positions of the sun and stars and the corresponding times of day and night, and study the Zodiac.\r The proportions of water and dry land was a much debated topic of the time. Like Aristotle, Leonardo was convinced that the quantity of water exceeded that of the land, and that a great quantity of water was collected in caverns underneath the surface of the Earth. Piccolomini was one of the first scientists to maintain the opposite. In his fifteen-chapter essay he provides detailed explanations of why, from the antiquity, the amount of water on the Earth had been thought to exceed that of the land, followed by the exposition of his own revolutionary theory. Alessandro Piccolomini (1508-1578), a typical Renaissance polymath, wrote poems along with scientific, philosophical and legal works. An important scientific collection in a very attractive contemporary Spanish binding - a charming example of 'encuadernaci√≥n plateresca', most widespread in university town in the C16. Both the Danti and the Piccolomini are also of interest as early Americana.","brand":"DANTI, Egnatio","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816078287183,"sku":"L48","price":7500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L48-8.jpg?v=1781795322"},{"product_id":"thevet-andre","title":"THEVET, Andre","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the Italian translation by Giuseppe Horologgi of Les Singularitez de la France Antarctique, first published at Paris in 1557, a most important first hand account of Thevet s journey to Brazil. Thevet, a Franciscan, accompanied Villegagnon on a French expedition in 1555 to establish a colony on the coast of Brazil. This important narrative of that unsuccessful venture contains one of the earliest descriptions of tobacco and its use by the Indians, as well as descriptions of Peru, Cuba, and Canada, the latter account derived from Jacques Cartier. Giolito reissued this translation in 1584. An English translation appeared in 1568. Thevet s first travels occurred in about 1550, when he accompanied the Cardinal Jean de Lorraine on a journey into Italy and the Mediterranean basin. His experience as a traveler attracted the attention of Nicolas Durand, Chevalier de Villegagnon, who was preparing to found a colony in what is today Brazil. He asked Thevet to accompany the expedition as its confessor. Thevet fell ill during the voyage and had to return to France after only ten weeks in Brazil. Using his own observations, however, combined with information gained from other travellers, Thevet quickly produced his  Singularitez de la France Antarctique  on his return. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Thevet writes here in detail of that attempt to form a colony, and includes vivid descriptions of the manners and customs of the natives whom he met. It seems probable, however, that his accounts of North America, which form a large portion of this book, and which he claims are based on first hand knowledge, derived mainly from conversations with Jacques Cartier, Sebastian Cabot, and the Sieur de Roberval. Nevertheless he gives one of the earliest descriptions of Canada, one of the earliest accounts of Newfoundland and Labrador, and one of the earliest discussions of the customs and ceremonies of the Indians, including a marvellous description of tobacco-smoking (p. 333). Andr é Thevet traveled extensively and wrote prolifically. Few sixteenth-century writers covered more territory or wrote more ambitiously. While today Thevet is seen largely as a compiler and editor of experiences that belonged to others, his work on Brazil remains important to those studying the first encounters with the New World. A good, unsophisticated copy of this important work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"THEVET, Andre","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816088707407,"sku":"L1366","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_5085.jpg?v=1781795317"},{"product_id":"reserved","title":"RESERVED","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare edition, the eighth published in ten years of the first major work on China and the first European book in which Chinese characters occur. All early editions in the original Spanish are now rare. It includes the celebrated 'Itinerario del nuevo Mundo', details of Tordesillas  voyage from Manila to China, the first Franciscan mission to China in 1579 and the account of the Canary Islands, Santo Domingo, the Philippines, Japan, Malacca and Coromandel, along with Loyola s account of the discovery of New Mexico by Antonio d Espejo which was never published separately. An English translation by Robert Parke was published in 1588. It was the first major survey of China and ran to some 33 editions between 1585 and 1613. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  This work, the first great book about China to be published in Europe, was a compilation of material Mendoca had obtained from a few Spanish missionaries, both Augustinians and Franciscans, living in the Philippines who had visited the southern coast of China for brief intervals. Mendoca s principle source was the learned Martin de Rada. This wonderful book contains a four-page sketch of the history of China, from Emperor Yao to the Wan-li Emperor of the Ming dynasty. Mendoca probably got much of his information from the papers of de Rada, including Chinese books he had bought during a short visit to Fu-chien province, that he had had translated by Chinese people living in the Philippines.... Though brief, this summary gives a historical dimension to this first book about China to be presented to the European reader, a work that was printed in forty-six editions in seven languages in the first fifteen years after it came out.  Thomas H. C. Lee  China and Europe: Images and Influences in Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RESERVED","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816118657359,"sku":"L1581","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1581-4.jpg?v=1781795301"},{"product_id":"le-petit-francois","title":"LE PETIT, François","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this highly important and beautifully illustrated history of the Dutch Republic, printed privately for the author. The commendatory verses include one in Dutch by Nicholas Doublet. Although the author covers the whole of the country's history up to 1600, about two thirds of the text is devoted to the C16th., making it one of the most detailed sources for the struggle for Dutch independence. Le Petit lists some 160 authors whose works he employed in his compilation, but much of its value lies in his use of mss. and original documents, and thus in his account of events otherwise unrecorded in printed histories. Le Petit's own history reflects the unsettled nature of the times he wrote on: although born in 1546 at B éthune into a noble Belgian family, he later abjured Catholicism and fled to Holland where he served William Ist, Prince of Orange. By 1598 he was living in Aix-la-Chapelle where he wrote his \"Grande Chronicle\" and dedicated it to the Estates-General of the United Provinces. An account of the reputed Swiss engravers, Christoph von Sichem Sr. and Jr., is given in Nagler II pp. 309-11. The portraits are generally finely engraved and are often expressive and vital, especially the superb full page portrait of the author after the title. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n About 16 pages in vol. I describe the geography of the New World, the supposed origins of its native inhabitants, the voyages of discovery, the conquest of the Indians, the climate, agriculture and resources of the Americas, their colonization, government and the missions, and the shameful treatment of the Indians by the Spaniards. Further pages deal with the expeditions of the Dutch to the East Indies and their commerce and colonization there. In vol. II Drake's exploits against the Spaniards in the New World are recorded. \"Cette chronique,  écrite en mauvais français, est fort curieuse pour les nombreux faits qu'elle relate, et que l'auteur a puis és aux sources originales . Il dit dans son  épitre d édicatoire qu'il a d écrit les choses après les avoir vues sur les lieux, et promet d'√™tre beaucoup plus exact que Guichardin qu'il contredit souvent\" (Nouv. Biog. G én.). \"En revanche la valeur historique du 2e vol., qui embrasse la p ériode de 1556-1600, est incontestable; il contient, √† cot é d'extraits de plusieurs auteurs ant érieurs, beaucoup de d étails et de particularit és qu'on chercherait vainement ailleurs.\" Biblioteca Belgica. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A very good, totally unsophisticated copy, from the exceptional library of Nicholas Joseph Foucault (b. 1643, d. 1721), marquis de Magny, statesman and passionate archaeologist, whose library of was \"parmi les plus pr écieuse concernant l'histoire de France\" (Guigard II p. 221), and then, along with many of Foucault's books, to the equally extraordinary library of the Earls of Macclesfield.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LE PETIT, François","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816120525135,"sku":"L861","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_0100.jpg?v=1781795293"},{"product_id":"reserved-2","title":"CIEZA DE LEÓN, Pedro [with] LOPEZ DI GOMARA, Francesco","description":"\u003cp\u003ei) Pedro Cieza de León (1518-1584) served in the Indies under Pizarro and lived for 17 years in Peru. His ‘Istorie’ is based on this long stay and his travels from place to place in the “Great Kingdom”. Divided into 122 chapters it begins with the discovery of the Indies and the foundation of Panama, then describes historical events and geographical characteristics of the various provinces which Cieza visited, and offers a fascinating account of the habits of the indigenous peoples. “One of the more important sources for the early history of Peru. The author describes Peru’s resources, vegetation and Indian tribes from personal experience, and also comments on Spanish administration of the region” JFB C256 on the second ed. Cieza never published a sequel to this ‘Prima Parte’ (though according to Sabin p.73 it exists in ms.). Nonetheless, these two related essays by the Spanish-American historian Francisco Lopez de Gomara are habitually treated as the second and third parts, the first being a history of the Western Indies, the second of Mexico.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eii) Important early essay by Spanish-American historian Lopez de Gomara on the history of the New West Indies, “covering the discovery, early exploration and first settlement of the New World by the Spaniards,” (Sabin on 1564 ed). Beginning with a discussion of the nature and location of the ‘Antipodes’ – meaning those places on the opposite side of the world – the text moves on to discuss the life and times of Christopher Columbus and a wealth of information on the religions, customs, geographies and appearance, of i.a. Honduras, Cuba, Venezuela, Peru and Nicaragua. The text discusses the division of territories between the Spanish and the Portuguese, the lives and achievements of the principal conquistadors, conflicts and allegiances with the natives including the Incas and reports mass deaths amongst the local population due to the introduction of alien germs such as smallpox. Although Francisco López de Gómara (c. 1511-1566) never actually visited the New World, through his close acquaintance with Cortés and leading conquistadors he had unparalleled access to first-hand testimony and documentary sources making this work “indispensable to the student of Spanish affairs after the conquest” (Sabin) and a prime resource for 16th century Latin-American history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eiii) Continuation of Gomara’s history of the West Indies, dealing primarily with the conquest of Mexico and focused on the personality of Hernán Cortés, leader of the Spanish expedition. Cortes’ audacious adventures against Montezuma’s Mexican empire from 1518 onwards aroused great interest in his native Spain, and won rich and extensive colonies for Charles V. The work contains a considerable amount of biographical, anthropological and topographical information, in addition to a detailed and lively account of Cortes’ voyage and campaigns against the Aztecs, culminating in Spanish dominance over the former Aztec Empire. It concludes with a Nahuatl vocabulary and some general information on Aztec social customs, religious practices and cosmographical theories.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CIEZA DE LEÓN, Pedro [with] LOPEZ DI GOMARA, Francesco","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816122589519,"sku":"L794","price":9850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/CIeza-de-Leon-L794-1.jpg?v=1781795286"},{"product_id":"gysius-johannes-and-las-casas-bartolome_","title":"GYSIUS, Johannes and LAS CASAS, Bartolome_","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of the of these two important works published in the Netherlands in 1620, containing French translations of two earlier works detailing Spanish crimes and atrocities in both Europe and the New World. The first part is an abridged version of  Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten  (Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands) by Johannes Gysius (died 1652), first published anonymously in 1616. The second part is a translation of Brev√≠sima relaci√≥n de la destrucci√≥n de las Indias (A short account of the destruction of the Indies), written by Bartolom é de las Casas (1474 1566) in 1542 and first published in 1552. These histories were published together under a new title by Jan Evertszoon Cloppenburch (1571 1648), an Amsterdam bookbinder and publisher of Bibles and patriotic and religious books and tracts associated with the Dutch Reformed Church. Gysius was a minister, whose book is a history of the Dutch revolt against Spain in 1555 98, containing accounts of such events as the sieges of Haarlem, Leiden, and other cities and the execution by the Spanish of Count Egmont in Brussels in 1568. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  Las Casas was reprinted in 1620 and 1630. The first of these editions appeared in Amsterdam without any prefatory matter not even the author s .. relying largely on copperplates to tell a pictoral story of torture and cruelty on the title page and throughout the text. The publisher, Jan Evertz Cloppenburg, presented a typology of Spanish cruelty. He included two title pages set up in identical ways with the same pictures . The first,..was on the Low countries and the second was about the new World and preceded Las Casas s account. The first title page included writing surrounded by pictures of men, women and children being tortured. Philip of Spain presided at the top and centre above the title, his vassals  Don Jan  and the  Duke of Alva  are shown facing the title: the Spanish cruelty in the Netherlands was mirroring that in the New World. .. This symbolic correspondence was a central typology of the Old World and New. Cloppenburg was asking the readers to see the Old World through the New. .. Here the publisher says that the Spaniards brought war and tyranny to the Low countries under the same religious pretext that they used to tyrannise the Natives in the New World a hundred years before. The heretics and the Lutherans in the Netherlands had taken the place of the pagans an Idolaters of the New World. .. In some of the engravings in Cloppenburg s edition, the inhabitants of the Netherlands are naked like the Natives. The translation, which is from the dutch, sometimes elaborates beyond Las Casas s original to make the Spaniards seem even crueler. The engravings of the Flemmish artist Theodore de Bry, which had been in the Frankfurt Latin edition of Las Casas in 1598, constituted part of this edition, where they reinforced visually the worst atrocities in the text.  Jonathan Hart  Literature, Theory, History.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A good copy of this important reinterpretation both these works.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"GYSIUS, Johannes and LAS CASAS, Bartolome_","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127144271,"sku":"L1795","price":4850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/l1795-le-miroir-10.jpg?v=1781795273"},{"product_id":"acosta-jose-de","title":"ACOSTA, Jos é de","description":"\u003cp\u003eThird edition of these pioneering treatises on the geography, anthropology and evangelisation of South America, previously published in Salamanca in 1588\/1589 and 1595. Jos é de Acosta (1540-1600) was among the first Jesuit missionaries to embark for the Spanish New World. He spent much of his life in Peru. The main settlement of the order was at that time in the village of Juli, on Lake Titicaca. Here, a college was set up to study the languages of the natives, while the newly-funded Jesuit printing press issued the first printed book of the Americas in 1577. Later, Acosta moved to Lima and taught theology at the university. In the Third Council of Lima (1582-1583) reorganising the American church, Acosta took a very active part and became its official historian. Following an adventurous journey through Mexico, in 1587 he head back to Spain, where he was appointed head of the Jesuit college in Valladolid and later Salamanca. A prolific writer, he is mostly famous for his very successful Historia natural y moral de las Indias. This knowledgeable, realistic and detailed description of the New World was sought after and soon translated into Italian, French, German, Dutch and English. The Natura novi orbis opening this edition represents the early draft of the Historia. In it, Acosta provided the first account of altitude sickness, which affected him while crossing the Andes. He also divided the Amerindians into three categories, acknowledging the Incas and Aztecs as fairly advanced societies in the civilisation process. The second part comprises a very innovative essay on evangelisation. Acosta struggles to demonstrated to his contemporaries that Amerindians were part of the original God s plan for mankind and thus were not inferior creatures undeserved of being Christianised and saved. In grounding his argument, the idea that the first inhabitants of America migrated from the biblical world (specifically from Asia), played a crucial role. Indeed, he was the first writer to postulate the existence of a land bridge at the northern or southern extremities of the two continents, long before the discovery of the Bering Strait. In his missionary zeal, Acosta was much concerned with the preparation and morality of priests, who he encouraged to study the aboriginal languages as an essential part of their duties.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ACOSTA, Jos é de","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127439183,"sku":"L1787","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1787-Acosta-666-e1436265905365.jpg?v=1781795273"},{"product_id":"mexican-church","title":"MEXICAN CHURCH","description":"\u003cp\u003eExtremely rare first edition of the decrees issued by the third Mexican Council of 1585 and approved by the papacy four years later. Gathered by the Viceroy and Archbishop Pedro Moya de Contreras, this highly influential assembly brought the decrees of the Council of Trent into the religious and social life of the New World, drawing up a legislation amazingly in use until the early twentieth century. Bishops attending the council focused mainly on doctrine, the internal organization of the Mexican province, missionary activities and rights of local people. Their decisions were first recorded in Spanish and later translated into Latin, so as to be confirmed by the pope. Yet, the Roman cardinals  committee in charge of approval rewrote large part of the decrees, strictly sticking to those of the Tridentine Council. As a result, the final official text came out only in 1622. The printed marginalia of the volume refers constantly to the sources of the Mexican decrees. Along with canon law and papal bulls, they comprise especially the deliberations of the Council of Trent, of the five Synods held in Milan under Carlo Borromeo as well as assemblies of the American and Spanish Church in Lima, Quiroga, Guadix and Granada. The final part of the book, and perhaps the most important, is devoted to the statutes of the recently-established Mexican Church. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The beautiful engraving of the title shows the personification of the Faith and Church in a classical architectural frame. It is signed at the bottom by the Dutch artist Samuel Stadanus. Stradanus worked in New Spain from about 1604. His most prominent patron was the promoter of this belated first edition, Archbishop Juan P érez de la Serna (1573-1627), whose arms appear at the head of title.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEXICAN CHURCH","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816127504719,"sku":"L1925","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4959.jpg?v=1781795274"},{"product_id":"bressani-francesco-giuseppe","title":"BRESSANI, Francesco Giuseppe","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally rare and important first edition of this work by the Jesuit Bressiani giving the first general description in Italian of the Jesuit missions in Canada among the Huron and Iroquois tribes.  Francesco Giuseppe Bressani published his Breve Relatione in Italian in 1653. It is the only part of the voluminous Jesuit Relations or Relations des J ésuites that is in Italian. .. It is a factual account of the years Bressani spent in New France as a missionary among the settlers and Native people. At the same time it is a vision of the possibilities of future Italian settlement in the New World. As a result Bressani's chronicle may be examined as a testament to his religious faith and to his imagination in constructing the image of a martyr.  Joseph J. Pivato. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Bressani was born in Rome in 1612 and in 1626 joined the Society of Jesus. In 1642 Bressani was in Canada where he first worked in the French settlement of Quebec and the following year was sent to Trois Rivières to the Algonquin mission. In April, 1644, on his way west to the Huron missions he was captured by the Iroquois who killed one of his Huron companions and then took Bressani, a French boy, and five other Huron captives south into the territory which is now New York State. They tortured him for two months, before he was ransomed by Dutch settlers at Fort Orange and sent back to France in November, 1644. The following year he was back in Canada working at the Huron Missions until their destruction by Iroquois attacks four years later. In 1649 a war-party of some twelve hundred warriors attacked Huronia. By this time many Iroquois had firearms which they had procured from the Dutch on the Hudson River, the Jesuits were forced to retreat east to the territory of Quebec. Bressani, however, continued to work with the scattered and fugitive Hurons for some months back in the original Quebec settlements. Only his failing health forced him to return to Italy in 1650. He opens his description with reference to Pope Urban VIII letter of 1638 that forbade the enslavement of Natives in the New World. As subjects of the missions the natives were recognised as human beings with souls that needed to be saved. It is clear that Bressani shared these ideals and enthusiastically followed them in his mission work. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The Breve Relatione is organised into three parts. The first presents a very positive image of the missions: Bressani describes the geography and vegetation of Canada, and then deals with the Native people. The second describes the conversion of the Native people and the many difficulties encountered by the Jesuits who arrived to convert them. The third gives us graphic details about the suffering, torture, and martyrdom of the missionaries including the author. Bressani goes into great detail describing the society of the Hurons. He lists their food and feast celebrations, their communal singing and dances, explains marriage practices and compares them to those of the ancient Jews. He points out that in their system of government tribal chiefs are determined by succession by way of the mother's line. In their system of justice crimes of theft and murder are dealt with through fines and gift giving for reparation. It is clear that he admires these people for their honesty, hospitality, and inherent sense of right and wrong. He also describes the many obstacles the Jesuits encountered: the harsh climate, river rapids and waterfalls, the dangers of the journeys due to Iroquois attacks, the problems with the different Indian languages, conflict with the Indian medicine men, and the plagues which killed large groups of Natives. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the second part he includes his letter to his superior in which he recounts his capture by the Iroquois, his tortures, forced travels, beatings, starvation, mutilations, and final rescue. The third and final part of the Breve Relatione deals with the sufferings of the missionaries at the hands of the Iroquois in which Bressani gives several accounts of torture and martyrdom, reproduced from other volumes of the Jesuit Relations written in French, including the martyrdom of Father Isaac Jogues, Father Charles Garnier, and Noel Chabanel. He also recounts the fate of Father Anne de Noue who died of cold when he got lost in the snow.  In the Italian we can almost hear Bressani's voice as he argues that their (the Hurons) intellectual capabilities and skills are as good as those of any bright Europeans. They are capable of learning and knowledge and of showing faith. What we find in the first chapters of Breve Relatione is an image of the noble savage, long before this idea was expressed by Jean Jacques Rousseau in 1778.  Joseph J. Pivato.. An excellent copy of this exceptionally rare work.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRESSANI, Francesco Giuseppe","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816128127311,"sku":"K20","price":13500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K20-2-1.jpg?v=1781795271"},{"product_id":"mastrilli-duran-nicola-and-ranconier-jean","title":"MASTRILLI DURAN, Nicola and RAN√áONIER, Jean","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this remarkable report from the Jesuit missions in Paraguay. Nicola Mastrilli (1568-1653), from Naples, was a prominent churchman of the New World. After joining the Jesuit order, he was sent to Peru, where he changed his surname into Dur√°n and graduated at the University of Lima. He distinguished himself as a zealous preacher, directing in Juli (Bolivia) the first Jesuit mission deeply engaged with the evangelisation of the local population. In 1623, he was elected supervisor of the province of Paraguay and then of the whole Peru. His care for the Indians was all but common among the Spanish establishment and was questioned even by some member of his order. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n These letters, addressed to the general of the Society, Muzio Vitelleschi, recorded the fast expansion of Jesuit activities in the southern region of the Spanish Viceroyalty, mainly between 1626 and 1627. They were written on Mastrilli s behalf by his confrere and collaborator, the Belgian Jean Rançonier. As other contemporary reports from the Americas and the Levant, the letters met immediate success and were translated into French two years later.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MASTRILLI DURAN, Nicola and RAN√áONIER, Jean","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816129634639,"sku":"L1966","price":4850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L1966.jpg?v=1781795269"},{"product_id":"casas-bartolome-de-las-1","title":"CASAS, Bartolom é, de las","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond edition of the first Italian translation of this major work of American colonisation. Bartolom é de las Casas (1484-1566) was among the most influential figures in the definition of juridical and social principles for the Spanish colonisation of the Americas. One of the earliest settlers, he freed his native slaves in 1515, later defending their rights in front of the Emperor Charles V. In the 1520s, he joined the Dominican order and acted as a missionary for several years. He was the first to be appointed to the office of  Protector of the Indios , responsible for the well-being of the natives in the colonies. Originally published as  Entre los remedios  in Seville in 1552,  Libert√†  first appeared in Italian in 1636 as  Il supplice schiavo indiano . Addressed to Charles V, it was a manifesto (in 20 points) against  encomienda , i.e., the Spanish settlers  practice, authorised by the Crown, of exacting tributes and forced labour from the natives. It gave fundamental contributions to  the development of a canon law seeking to keep separate the reasons of the evangelisation of new peoples and those of the state , and to reflections on the natural right of the natives and the necessity to balance evangelisation and human dignity (Dalla Torre, 9-10). Translated by the printer Marco Ginammi, but maintaining the Spanish original, the 1640 edition was dedicated to Odoardo Farnese, Duke of Parma, who had visited his bookshop in Venice. Ginammi, who had also printed Bartolom é s work on the conquest and destruction of the Indies, decided also to print that on the natives  right to freedom because  freedom should come before conquest . Ginammi was catering to the growing interest of the Venetian public in the conquest of the Indies and the particular success of Bartolom é s not always orthodox works. Indeed, Venetian readers,  proud of the independence of their territory , probably accepted more readily Bartolom é s statements in defence of freedom over subjection, which also  introduced several doubts on the legitimacy of the dominion of the Spanish government in America  (Serafin, 148). A remarkably influential early work on law, religion and human rights.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CASAS, Bartolom é, de las","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816164368719,"sku":"L3098","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/img_20190718_144604-scaled.jpg?v=1781794877"},{"product_id":"ptolemy-claudius","title":"PTOLEMY, Claudius","description":"\u003cp\u003eExceptionally rare edition of this popular astronomical text, very charmingly illustrated with numerous woodcuts, the last of the early editions, the only edition printed in the seventeenth century. The rather rudimentary map is marked i.a. with Mexico, New England, the West indies, Peru, the Straits of Magelan, Brasil and Virginia. Below the two southmost capes is a the land mass described as the  South Continent . The work was originally translated from the French  Compost et kalendrier des bergiers , and appeared in two forms throughout the C16th; one as  The Kalender of Shepards  and the other with the title  The Compost of Ptholomeus . Although they are often described as containing nothing from Ptolemy, other than the falsification of authorial attribution, the work does have a general articulation of some of the astrological matters set forth in Ptolemy s Quadripartitum. The influence of astronomy over individuals is discussed, and this version has a chapter on palmistry added at the end.  In the  Kalendar of Shepherds , the putative source of the astrological and health information is initially an unnamed, ancient shepherd.   the authentication for the information in the text was a natural and pastoral figure of wisdom, the void of book learning. In the prologue, it is also stated that  this boke was made for them that be no Clerkes to brynge them to great understandynge  thus identifying itself as a text for a non-elite readership yet at the same time offering access to the very traditional classical learning skills and intimating a connection between the occult knowledge and active reading. .. In Notary s 1506 edition, Ptolemy is merely cited in the table of contents in relation to the twelve signs of the zodiac but not mentioned in the text. In Pynson s 1518 edition, Ptolemy is referenced both textually and visually, again in relation to the zodiac, but as a very minor reference in the text. .. Beginning in the 1530s, the strand of the multi-text breaks off; the text is condensed, new images are added, others are eliminated, and the title is changed to the  Compost of Ptolomeus, Prince of Astronomy  .. These editions, initially published by Robert Wyer, make a significant modification: the name of the Ptolemy is increasingly inserted into the verbal text, shifting the authentication from the ancient shepherd to Ptolemy. .. The Catholic feast day calendar is eliminated, along with much of the Christian moralising and, generally, a narrower focus on the astrological components. Neither the woodblock image of the shepherd nor that of the scholar carries over once the text is renamed  The compost of Ptolomeus;  instead, the symbolic function previously vested in the figure of the scholar shepherd is now conflated into the single figure of Claudius Ptolomy,  Prince of Astronomeye . ..In his editions of the Compost, Wyer not only strengthened the association of the verbal and visual text with Ptolemy, but also incorporated specifically geographical information; Wyer appends a  Rutter , a navigational chart of the distances between various port cities, consequently increasing the function of the text as a source of geographic information.. For English readers in the early print era the images of and attribution to Ptolemy thus narrate and mediate an encounter with emerging geographical thought. The textual and visual attribution to Ptolemy created a kind of aura for the text that mystified the diffuse authorship of the work, and that subsumed the fascination with the occult and Catholic ritual into a pseudo-scientific discourse.  Keith D. Lilley  Mapping Medieval Geographies: Geographical Encounters in the Latin West . \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Unsurprisingly all editions of this ephemeral and popular work it are exceptionally rare; ESTC records no more than two copies of any of the five earlier editions of this text, and records this, the only seventeenth century edition, in three copies only, two at the BL and one at Birmingham University library. No copies recorded in the US.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PTOLEMY, Claudius","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57816166334799,"sku":"K153","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-1-1_9a584f5c-3067-4d95-ad05-137a9799d656.jpg?v=1781794869"},{"product_id":"clerck-nicolaes-de","title":"CLERCK, Nicolaes de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fascinating history of the most important princes (including two from the New World), noblemen and heroes (mostly explorers and navigators) of Christianity, beautifully illustrated with numerous engraved portraits, here in fine impression. The Flemish Nicolaes de Clerck (fl. 1599-25), printer in Delft, specialised in engravings from plates designed and engraved by skilled artists like Jacques de Gheyn the Younger. He also himself produced maps and dozens of portraits of political figures for historical publications ( Drawing , 191). In 1600, he was rewarded financially for  having dedicated and presented to the States General the depictions of the genealogy of the illustrious house of Nassau and the feats of war  (Klinkert,  Information , 62). Each section of  Tooneel  begins with a textual genealogy, focusing at length on major figures, depicted in handsome portraits. These include Cesare Borgia, Alessandro Farnese, William of Orange, Cosimo I de  Medici, Gaston de Foix, Edward Prince of Wales and Philip the Good. The portraits (and biographies) of the Americana section were drawn from Andr é Thevet s famous  Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres  (1584). These include Montezuma, King of Mexico, Atahualpa, King of Peru, Hern‚àö¬∞n Cort és, Francisco Pizzarro, Ferdinando Magellano and Amerigo Vespucci (this last filed in the section of de  Medici, his patrons). Thevet s  Les vrais pourtraits  was hitherto the closest attempt to replicate a faithful image of New World figures. Montezuma was the only prince whose image Thevet had not managed to acquire, so he used as a source the Aztec  Codex Mendoza  (c.1529-33); nobody was allowed to look at the king, though Cort és had described him in a letter to Charles V. For Atahualpa, Thevet used an image from his personal collection; no native portrait has survived (Hajovsky,  Andr é Thevet , 335). An unexpected Americanum, with fresh illustrations in the Netherlandish style.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CLERCK, Nicolaes de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820341240143,"sku":"L3137","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_8475-scaled.jpg?v=1781794844"},{"product_id":"bg-mazzella-scipione-with-de-bry-theodor","title":"BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] [with] DE BRY, Theodor.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe beautifully illustrated, rare and important eleventh vol of Theodor De Bry s Small voyages containing three important travel accounts including the relation of Vespucci s third and fourth voyage to America, in a stunning, finely preserved, contemporary morocco binding from the library of James I, very much in the style of Bateman. The first part contains all the plates from Mazella s history of the kings of Naples. The Small Voyages were printed in a total of 13 parts and an Appendix, at Frankfurt from 1597 to 1633; this is the sole Latin edition of part eleven of the Small voyages. This eleventh part contains three narratives: 1) [p. 5-10] The relations of the third and fourth voyages of Vespuccius to America, in 1501 and 1503; it is a reprint of selections of the author s: Mundus novus, first printed under title: Albericus Vespuccius Laurentio Petri Francisci de Medicis salutem plurimam dicit Amerigo Vespucci, Paris, 1503 but generally known as: Mundus novus. 2) [p. 11-46] An account of Robert Coverte s travels by land through Persia and Mongolia [here, Church is incorrect. Instead of Mongolia, it is the Mogul Empire], after his shipwreck off Surat. This relation was first printed in English, at London in 1612; it is a translation of  A true and almost incredible report of an Englishman, that (being cast away in the good ship called the Assention in Cambaya the farthest part of the East Indies) trauelled by land through many vnknowne kingdomes, and great cities, by Robert Coverte, first printed London, 1612  3) [p. 47-62] A geographical description of Spitzbergen and a refutation of the claims of the English to the northern whale fisheries, with the journal of the voyage of Willem Barentsz and Jan Corneliszoon Rijp, in 1596, Cf. Church. It is a translation of: Histoire du Pays nomm é Spisberghe collected and edited by Hessel Gerritsz, printed in Amsterdam, 1613, which is, in turn, a translation of selections of his: Descriptio ac delineatio geographica detectonis freti; sive Transitus ad occasum, supra terras Americanas, in Chinam atque Japonem ducturi, recens investigati ab M. Henrico Hudsono Anglo, first printed in Amsterdam, 1612. There are two states of the title page: in the first one, the vignette has two natives and a centre engraved portrait of Olivier van Noort, with two map hemispheres; the other has a native woman on the left with her child and a native man on the right with two ships in the centre. This copy contains the rare Plate VII, of a woman being carried in state to be burned with the body of her husband. This is often replaced by the plate, in which a woman is represented as throwing herself into the funeral pyre of her husband, used as plate IX.  JCB. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n  The language of Vespucci s first public letter is compatible with the idea of a  new world  under and subordinate to the known configuration of lands. But in his second published letter Vespucci treats the southern and northern parts of the area he and Columbus explored as a single continent that is not Asia. This was a stunning breakthrough in the state of knowledge, one Columbus never achieved  Wills, Letters from a New World. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This marvellous copy, with two works of particular interest to the English, comes from the library of James I (1566-1625), the first and probably the most learned  King of Great Britain  as ruler of both Scotland and England.  He studied Greek, French, and Latin and made good use of a library of classical and religious writings that his tutors, George Buchanan and Peter Young, assembled for him. James s education aroused in him literary ambitions rarely found in princes but which also tended to make him a pedant.  EBO. His numerous books were often customised with his arms by the royal binder, John Bateman, who employed various style, material and techniques (M. Foot, The Henry Davids Gift, I, pp. 38-49, 52). This copy is of exceptional quality even within Bateman s refined and wide-ranging output.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BG. [Mazzella Scipione.] [with] DE BRY, Theodor.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820341961039,"sku":"L2228","price":19500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/Untitled-42_d5a4bb79-5a04-48bd-8311-0188ce5fe46a.jpg?v=1781794842"},{"product_id":"brant-sebastian","title":"BRANT, Sebastian.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA landmark of early printing, with superb woodcut illustrations partly attributed to the young D√ºrer, as well as with early references to Columbus s discoveries and, for the first time in this first enlarged Latin edition, a poem on the Ottoman threat. A German humanist from Strasbourg, Sebastian Brant (1458-1521) completed his studies at Basel. There, until 1500, he published his major works, the most renowned of which,  Das Narrenschiff , in 1494. The humanist Jakob Locher translated it into Latin as  Stultifera navis  in March 1497, adding four woodcuts and in this fifth and first enlarged Latin edition also a new poem by Brant,  De pereuntibus .  Stultifera navis  is a powerful satirical poem.  In a ship laden with one hundred fools, steered by fools to the fools  paradise of Narragonia, Brant satirizes all the weaknesses, follies and vices of his time. Composed in popular humorous verse and illustrated by a remarkable series of woodcuts of which 75 are now attributed to the young D√ºrer the book was an immediate success  (PMM 37). The nautical theme was probably strengthened under the influence of contemporary debates on voyages of exploration and the vanity of seeking knowledge of God s creation. Most famous is the chapter on the  inquisition of geographical regions , or the foolishness of those who want to measure the earth, illustrated by a fool s-capped figure holding a compass. It also mentions Columbus s recent discoveries, which had first appeared in print in his letter to Ferdinand and Isabella of 1493, reprinted by Bergmann, Brant s Basel publisher, in 1494. The verse states that Ptolemy, Pliny and Varro were all wrong, and the  terra  that was previously  incognita  was now revealed; these Western Hesperides now belonged to King Ferdinand. Brant s new and final poem,  De pereuntibus , deals with the Ottoman threat, and bears a separate t-p with figures engaged in foolish activities and a diagrammatic horoscope. After foreseeing a nefarious planetary conjunction on 2 October 1503, he bemoans the dangers in which Christianity has been cast by the Turks   irruptio  and argues for the support of the Emperor Maximilian in his fight against them. A lavishly illustrated important work and a fascinating edition.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BRANT, Sebastian.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820342419791,"sku":"K168","price":32500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/K168-3.jpg?v=1781794838"},{"product_id":"astolfi-giovanni-felice","title":"ASTOLFI, Giovanni Felice.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA very rare, fascinating work on worldwide popular cults of the Virgin Mary one of the earliest systematic works on the subject an Americanum and Japonicum unrecorded in major bibliographies. Felice Astolfi (f. 1603), of whom little is known, was the author of an important historical work ( Dell officina storica ) and of several on miracles, a very popular subject in Counter-Reformation print.  Historia universale  explores miracles and the popular cult of the Virgin Mary in the Old and New World, and in the Orient, through hundreds of fascinating anecdotes painstakingly drawn from Jesuit letters, and geographical and travel accounts like Botero s. The variable collation of the preliminaries reflects the troubled history of its printing in the Autumn of 1623; the present is an early issue, with a blank where later issues display an additional dedication or a shorter gathering.  Although [it] built on a long medieval tradition of devotional literature, the miracle stories took on new significance in the context of the early modern religious debates about the immanence of God. Astolfi addressed one of the major theological concepts debated in the early modern period: what is the proper role and function of miracles?  (D Andrea,  Miracles ). His narrative is especially concerned with the intercessory power of Marian images and their cult, and the immanence of God in physical objects. It begins with a life of Mary followed by a list of the relics (her body and clothing), with details of those preserved in Venetian churches. The first nine parts discuss the foundation of the earliest Marian churches and monasteries, accounts of miracles, the power of sacred images, iconoclasm, the miracles and local cult of specific images. From part 10 onwards are approx. 40 pages of accounts devoted to the wider world: Africa, where the Virgin makes Christian slaves escape the Moors  prison, miracles in Manomotapa, Ethiopia and Angola, Christian fights by land and sea against the Moors; India, where a man s rosary saves his sick, unchristened son, a bloody cross appears over the unburied body of a converted native, Monaian castle is reconquered after a procession, and Our Lady of Bengala is worshipped; the Caribbean, with a vessel haunted by demons at sea and saved by the Madonna of Guadalupe; Japan, with miracles during earthquakes, the miraculous healing of the sick in Bungo, the cult of Our Lady of Japan and Our Lady of Chitaoca, the burning of the Bonzi s idols, the Marian cult encouraged by the Queen of Tango, devotion in the city of Amangucci, exorcisms, four crosses appearing on a tree; Brazil, with the foundation of the church of Nostra Signora dell Aiuto, the conversion of a cannibal, the destruction of relics at the hand of Protestant colonists; Mexico, with praise for the natives  treatment of the sick and management of hospitals, a Marian apparition to the sick, the Virgin s feeding a sick woman; Peru, with the Marian cult in the mines of Potosi and a miracle against a demon pretending to offer help to miners, the care of the sick, the apparition of the Virgin to a dying native, the sad fate of a girl lying in confession, a healing prayer taught to a native; and China, with apparitions of the Virgin in the sky. Very scarce, fascinating and unusual.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ASTOLFI, Giovanni Felice.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57820346515791,"sku":"L3457","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9373.jpg?v=1781794811"},{"product_id":"meursius-johannes-1","title":"MEURSIUS, Johannes.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A very good copy, with interesting contemporary Mexican provenance, of the first edition of this important work on Greek antiquity by the Dutch antiquary Johannes Meursius (1579-1639), professor of Greek at Leiden. This copy was in two Jesuit  collegia  in Mexico: at Veracruz, where the Jesuits first landed in 1572, and at Tepotzotlan. The latter, established in c.1600 near Mexico City, became one of the most influential novitiates, especially under the rectorship of the chronicler Andr és P érez de Ribas (1575-1655), probably in office when this copy was acquired. He called the Collegium  one of the principal and most necessary  in Mexico, especially as an institution which also focused on the teaching of the Nahuatl and Otom‚àö‚↠languages (Molina, 101). This included the staging of adapted Spanish plays translated into Nahuatl and performed in local churches (Burkhart, 35).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .An invaluable didactic instrument, Meursius s work was intended first and foremost for university students. This copy was very likely employed at the collegia as the  Ratio studiorum  of 1599, which systematised the Jesuit curriculum,  considered Greek a part of required studies  and generally  saw history as ancient history  (Worcester, 661).  Lectiones Acticae  built on previous works on Greek antiquity by the great classicists Graevius and Gronovius, to create a compact encyclopaedia of ancient history and customs. It includes sections on Athens, the oath of junior magistrates (thesmotetai), the history of the Metr_on sanctuary, the obscure painter Micon, the seating places for senators and ephebi at the theatre, and the walls of Piraeus, with the addition of detailed interpretative emendations of Greek words through comparative etymology. Each statement is followed by the specific Greek passage whence it was taken, Meursius s main sources being Strabo, Suidas, Thucydides, Aristophanes, Pollux, Plutarch and epigraphic inscriptions. The result is a compact collection of all that was known on those topics, enhanced by a detailed final index. Although Meursius was an  auctor damnatus  added to the Index, this work was  permissum , as specified in this copy by the C18 Inquisitor Martinus de Sezama. A very interesting copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MEURSIUS, Johannes.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859628106063,"sku":"L3538","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_9000.jpg?v=1781793801"},{"product_id":"de-las-casas-bartolome-with-grysius-johannes","title":"DE LAS CASAS, Bartolomé [with] GRYSIUS, Johannes.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFascinating Dutch translation of the ‘Brevíssima relación de la destrucción de las Indias’ (A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies) by Bartolomé de las Casas, first published in 1578 and based on the first edition in Spanish printed in Seville in 1552. A Spanish Dominican friar and missionary, de las Casas arrived in Hispaniola in 1502, where he worked for many years as a bishop and ‘Protector of the Indians’. He was the first to ever expose the oppression of indigenous peoples by Europeans in the Americas. The ‘Brevísima relación’ is his most famous and influential work, in which he describes the first years of the colonisation of the West Indies and denounces the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the natives. Not only had the Dutch translation of de las Casas been manipulated to make the Spaniards seem even crueler, but the volume also includes a series of vivid and detailed illustrations which were meant to visually reinforce the worst atrocities in the text, including torture and cannibalism. These are among the first images that Europeans encountered of the peoples of the Americas, realised by the famous Flemish engraver and publisher Theodor de Bry (1528-1598). As De Bry never visited the New World, he based his artworks on the drawings of other artists and on the accounts of explorers. In contrast to these sources, the native’s faces and figures in De Bry’s prints are unmistakably European, and often in poses that resemble Greco-Roman sculptures.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLas Casas is bound with an abridged version of ‘Oorsprong en voortgang der Nederlandtscher beroerten’ (Origin and progress of the disturbances in the Netherlands), by the Dutch historian and minister Johannes Grysius printed in 1616. It is concerned with the brutal events of the Dutch Revolt (1566–1648), against the rule of the Habsburg King Philip II of Spain; it also includes a mention of Spanish massacre of French in Florida, as well as of the Spanish treatment of the American Indians. The Dutch printer Evertsen Cloppenburgh Jr (1571–1648) republished these two 1620 editions together as a single volume, with identical engraved title pages, in order to create a symbolic correspondence between the Old World and the New. In this second work, there are images of massacres in Brüssel, Rotterdam, Mechelen, Zutphen, Haarlem, Maastricht, and other cities. Interestingly, in some of them, the inhabitants of the Netherlands are naked like the Native Americans.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"DE LAS CASAS, Bartolomé [with] GRYSIUS, Johannes.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859639771471,"sku":"L3138","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"caro-de-torres-francisco","title":"CARO DE TORRES, Francisco.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition of this remarkable history of the Spanish military orders, from their establishment in the Middle Ages to the reign of Philip II. Dedicated to Philip IV, this work represents a fundamental source of information about the military conquest of the New World. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Francisco Caro de Torres (c. 1550-1642) was a Spanish priest, soldier and writer. Born in Seville and son of a conquistador, he had first-hand information regarding military action in America: after fighting in Italy, Azores and the Netherlands, he sailed to Peru with Fernando de Torres, count of Villar, recently appointed viceroy. During the journey, as well as in Lima, Caro de Torres dedicated himself to historical readings, realising that:  the stories that were written in our language, both about the wars in Italy and in Flanders, and many of the events that happened in my presence were told in a way very different from how I had actually seen, heard and observed them  (Medina). Later, he joined the troops sent to Chile to assist Alonso de Sotomayor, the Chilean governor, and a solid friendship developed between them. In August 1592, Caro de Torres accompanied de Sotomayor, who was finishing his term as governor, to Panama, where they fought and defeated the English corsairs lead by the feared and celebrated admiral Sir Francis Drake. Back to Madrid, Caro de Torres dedicated the rest of his life to writing. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n In the introduction to his  History of the Military orders , the author states that he composed an  official history , which highlights the nobility and greatness of the orders, focusing on the things that  must be imitated and do not give scandalous example . The first and second books contain the history of the military orders of Santiago, Calatrava and Alcantara, presented through a series of short chronological chapters dedicated to the various leaders of the orders ( Maestres , or  Grand masters ) who followed each other. The third book is the longest and most interesting, dealing with the Spanish conquests in the New World. It starts with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, and it comprises long accounts of the wars in Chile, the conquest of Peru and Mexico by the famous conquistadores Francisco Pizarro and Hernan Cortes, as well as the actions of Sir Francis Drake and his death at Nombre de Dios. At the end, the author also included the Latin text of a series of Papal bulls concerning the establishment of three military orders and an apologia for the orders by Don Fernando Pizarro de Orellana, biographer and knight of the Order of Calatrava. \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n The finely engraved title page was realised by the Flemish engraver Alardo de Popma, active in Sevilla, Toledo and Madrid between 1617 and 1641.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CARO DE TORRES, Francisco.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859639935311,"sku":"L3720","price":3750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/DSC_8811.jpg?v=1781793764"},{"product_id":"boemus-johann-1","title":"BOEMUS, Johann.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAttractive copy of the Italian translation of this bestseller on ethnography by Johann Boemus, including a fascinating addition on the New World by the Italian Girolamo Giglio. First published in 1520 and counting almost fifty editions over the course of the 16th century, Boemus’ work was translated, adapted and even plagiarised several times in many European languages. This Italian translation was made by the Venetian Lucio Fauno – pseudonym of the humanist Giovanni Tarcagnota (c. 1508-1566) – and first printed in 1542, while Giglio’s fourth book on the Americas appeared for the first time printed by Giglio himself in 1558.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBorn in Aub (Lower Franconia) and chaplain of the Teutonic Order – hence the epithet of ‘Aubanus Teutonicus’ – Hans Böhm or Johann Boemus (c.1485-1535) was a German humanist, poet and canon of the Lutheran church of Ulm Minster. This extremely successful treatise, commonly known with the Latin title ‘Omnium Gentium Mores, Leges et Ritus’, is the first ethnographic work of the Early modern period. Mainly based on classical and humanistic authors, it is an encyclopaedia of the customs, institutions and rites of all peoples, “both those who once were and those now in the world”. The work is divided into three books, each dedicated to one of the three continents of the Old World. Book I, on Africa, opens with two chapters on the origin of humanity: the first reporting the biblical account, the second presenting the ideas of the ancient philosophers; then, it focuses on Aethiopians (“the first of all mortal men”) and Egyptians. Book II, on Asia, is a voyage through Assiria, Giudea, Media, Parthia, Persia, India, Scithia, Tartaria and Turkey. Book III, on Europe, is perhaps the most detailed, dealing not only with the customs of major nations, but also with those of specific regions within them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGirolamo Giglio (active: 1541-1560) was a priest, printer and publisher who worked alone and with his brothers in Venice and Rome. He was the first to came up with the innovative idea of adding a fourth book (ll.go 193-240) on the Americas to Boemus’ ethnographic treatise. It was based on the Italian translations of López de Gómara’s history of Mexico and the Indies (Rome, 1555-56): “This choice may be understood as an attempt to make Giglio’s addition competitive on the Venetian book market, still influenced by the recent appearance of the third volume of Navigationi et viaggi (1556) by Giovanni Battista Ramusio, which dealt with the Americas, but did not include Gómara” (Marcocci). A brief but exhaustive account of the customs of the New World, Giglio’s book adopts a perspective that is favourable to the Indians – in contrast to the moral and religious condemnation of their traditions and social organization that can often be read in other contemporary works. A curious note is that, in Giglio’s pages, the discoverer of America is called “Christoforo Palombo”, instead of ‘Colombo’. Interestingly, this seems to be the only work in which this particular variation of his name appears.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BOEMUS, Johann.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859640820047,"sku":"L3495","price":1650.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20250306_133408-copy.jpg?v=1781793753"},{"product_id":"apianus-petrus-2","title":"APIANUS, Petrus.","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe scarce first edition of this lavishly illustrated work on cosmography, astronomy, cartography and navigation   a most famous Americanum and a ground-breaking landmark in the history of scientific illustration.  One of the first European books to depict and discuss North America, [equipped with] movable volvelles allowing the readers to interact with and use some of the charts and instrument layouts presented  .(MAA). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n A pioneer in the popularization of astronomy and cartography, Apianus (1495-1552) studied mathematics at Leipzig and Vienna. His first printed work was a world map (1520), based on Waldseem.√º.ller. s famous gores   the second in print to use the name  America .  Cosmographicus Liber , which earned Apianus a professorship, was a very successful textbook, translated into most European languages throughout the C16 and later expanded by the mathematician Gemma Frisius. Largely based on Ptolemy, it begins with the definition of cosmography    a broad science of the Renaissance which set out to explain everything in the universe within a mathematical framework  (Barentine, p.147). In fact,  cosmography was fundamentally concerned with using projective geometry to connect the heavens and the Earth, and, frequently, to relate solar motion, terrestrial location and time  (Whipple, p.58). Part I discusses the movements of the spheres, the 5 climatic zones, the elevation of the poles, how to calculate latitude and longitude, as well as the distance between places, using instruments, eclipses and the winds. Part II deals with the four continents (with a chapter on America), providing the latitude and longitude of major locations, including Guadalupe, Brazil, Cuba, Cabo de Buenaventura and Rio de Santiago, how to calculate the hours of day and night, as well as heights, etc. A great part is devoted to the use of contemporary astronomical instruments, e.g., the armillary sphere and the  .scala geometrica. . The C16 annotator of this copy noted down the dates of the winter and summer solstice,  8 days before the Kalendae of January  (December 25) and  8 days before the Kalendae of July  (June 24), with reference to the Julian calendar.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Appearing for the first time, the book .s volvelles.   revolving paper instruments printed onto separate sheets, cut and assembled either at the press or by the binder or the reader   were  its main selling point and principal innovation . Whereas earlier books of similar content were largely constructed around sets of tabular information, Apianus s volvelles turned the pages of  Cosmographicus Liber  into functional computers, enabling skilled users to make calculations involving navigation, distances and time  (Barentine, p.152). They were often, as the 4 in this copy, printed or mounted on scrap paper from other books (Drennan, p.320). The 2 movable parts glued to the last verso were intended to be detached and used to build a small nocturnal clock, the model for one of several instruments Apianus was selling at his workshop.  The symbiosis between cosmography and instrument-design not only made cosmographical treatises depict actual instruments, but also led to occasional brass implementation of paper instruments contained in these treatises  (.Vanden Broecke,. p.141). \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n Published 31 years after the first announcement in print of Columbus s discovery,  Cosmographicus Liber   illustrates America in a woodcut globe (p.2) and famously, for the first time, on a volvelle (p.63). It also includes .a chapter .about America   discovered in 1497 , a date shared by other German sources, with no mention of Columbus - which begins:  America, now the Fourth part of the Earth, is so called after its discoverer, Americo Vespucci.   it is referred to as an Island as it is surrounded by the sea.  The 1-page account describes the native inhabitants as  anthropophagi , mentions their traditional clothing, customs, cults and rites, as well as the names of surrounding islands (e.g., Cuba).  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n This is one of two recorded variants of the first edition. All copies of this variant we have seen bear the same editorial revisions on p.23, in this copy in the same hand as the BL copy. A total of 4 volvelles plus the (very uncommon) 2 movable parts are called for by Borba de Moraes and found in the BL copy and in the present. Alden cites 4 volvelles, and no movable parts; the Whipple, Harrisse and Ortroy only call for 3 volvelles.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"APIANUS, Petrus.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859660775759,"sku":"L3234","price":64500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3234-7.jpg?v=1781793701"},{"product_id":"maffei-raffaello","title":"MAFFEI, Raffaello.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.An excellent, attractively bound copy of this handsomely produced edition of one of the earliest Renaissance encyclopaedias, with a mention of Columbus s discoveries. Raffaello Maffei (1451-1522), from Volterra, was a theologian and humanist; he was acquainted with Pico della Mirandola, Poliziano and Lorenzo de  Medici, and studied Greek under George of Trebizond. First published in 1506,  Commentaria  is his  magnum opus  - an encyclopaedia encompassing the entire knowledge of his time, from theology to biology. Part I, on geography, begins with a few sections on the heavenly spheres, the use of the gnomon to calculate latitude, with data on specific places worldwide, and the inhabited world at different latitudes. The remainder is a historical and geographical survey, based on ancient, medieval and contemporary sources, of the main regions and states in the world, from Spain, France, Poland and  Britannia  (with an account of the ancient kings of Britain from Brutus to Uther Pendragon, and mention of Merlin, the Saxon kings, the Conquest, the Angevins, Thomas ‚àö‚Ć Beckett and the War of the Roses, down to Henry VII), the Middle East, India, northern Africa, and places recently discovered ( loca nuper inventa ) under the patronage of the King of Spain. This last section includes a mention of Columbus s discovery in 1496 [sic]. Part II, on anthropology, is a gallery of  vires illustri , in alphabetical order, from the rulers, poets and philosophers of the ancient world, to the Fathers of the Church, medieval theologians (e.g., William of Ockham), heresies (e.g., Albigenses), popes, religious orders, and dozens of major humanists of his time, e.g., Aretinus, Chrysoloras, Filelfo, Bessarion, Gaza, Ficinus and Picus, as well as painters (e.g., Mantegna, Leonardo, Donatello, Bellini). Part III, on Philology, begins with sections on body parts, including medical conditions (e.g., ulcers, abscesses, fevers), proceeding to kinds of mammals, fish and insects, local, exotic and mythical; colour pigments, gemstones, metals; architecture and related machinery; leather; character traits; laws; language (orthography, diction, accents); and astronomy. The last few pp. Include Maffei s translation of Xenophon s  Oeconomicus , the most famous and ancient manual of husbandry and household management.  \u003cbr\u003e\n  \u003cbr\u003e\n .This is one of four issues published in 1526, all by Ascensius.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MAFFEI, Raffaello.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57859665854799,"sku":"L3727","price":2750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L3727-2.jpg?v=1781793693"},{"product_id":"morisot-claude-barthelemy","title":"MORISOT, Claude Barth élemy.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA fine copy, crisp and clean, of the first and only edition, first issue, of this lavishly illustrated Americanum,  the first naval history, a veritable naval encyclopaedia  (Borba de Moraes). The French Neo-Latin poet Claude Barth élemy Morisot (1592-1661) is especially renowned for his alchemical allegory.  Orbis Maritimi  is an encyclopaedia of the sea, navigation, maritime customs and folklore   a fundamental source on maritime law, like Cleriac s (1647), and travel. Book I is devoted to ancient times, prefaced by a handsome engraving of an ancient  naumachia , a popular spectacle, whereby a theatre was flooded and small ships faced one another in a choreographed battle. ..The account begins with the obscure ..origins of navigation and the invention of ships, ancient myths of navigation (e.g., Jason), the most important ancient Greek and Roman sea battles, with observations on the kinds of vessels used, how victors at sea were honoured on return, and maritime spectacles staged in ancient cities. The section on ancient hydrography is a description of the seas, coasts and coastal cities of antiquity, based on ancient sources and providing the modern equivalent of historic place names. It is illustrated with several half-page maps, based on De Bry, including the Iberian peninsula, Britain and Ireland, sundry parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Greece. Book II proceeds through the medieval period, analysing major sea battles by the Gauls, Normans, Britons, Germans, Russians, Poles, and so on, down to Morisot s times. A couple of sections focus on England, with a summary of key maritime battles since antiquity, and a discussion of C16 maritime policy (e.g., Thomas Seymour as Lord Admiral), voyages (e.g., Francis Drake and Raleigh in the Americas), and early colonies (e.g., Thomas Gates and Thomas Hamond in Virginia, and the establishment of Nova Scotia). Morisot continues with a critique of John Selden s  Mare Clausum , a theory of territorial waters. Morisot provides illustrations of medieval or contemporary coins or medals representing the king or emperor through maritime iconography. Among the numerous voyages that are mentioned are also Columbus s 1492 voyage, followed by Spanish explorations of South America, de Veer s expedition to the Antarctic, Magellan s explorations in the southern hemisphere, and Portuguese travels in Brazil and Asia. The accounts are factual and detailed, peppered with anecdotes and maritime folklore. A handsome copy.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"MORISOT, Claude Barth élemy.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868670402895,"sku":"L4155","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4155-2.jpg?v=1781793665"},{"product_id":"pizarro-y-orellana-fernando","title":"PIZARRO Y ORELLANA, Fernando.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.The first and only edition, in English binding, of this glorification of the Spanish Conquest of the New World   a treasure trove of historical historic and sociocultural information, and an interesting piece of propaganda.  This work contains biographies of Columbus, Alonso de Ojeda, Cortez, the four Pizarros, Diego de Almagro, and Diego Garcia de Paredes, in which the treachery and brutality of the conquerors in the treatment of the Indians is palliated and defended  (Sabin). Printed on poor quality paper the text is often oxidised, but not in this case.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Fernando Pizarro y Orellana was professor of law at Salamanca and appointed minister of the Counsel of Castile by Philip IV. He claims here to be the grandson of the greatly celebrated conquistador Francisco Pizarro. In the appended  discurso legal , he reminds the King of the grants promised by his predecessors to Pizarro s ancestors, as a reward for the riches brought about by the conquest. After several prefaces, preambles, privileges and prefatory letters   all intended to give weight to what is to follow   the work opens with probably the longest (40pp.) biography of Columbus then printed. His discovery was seen as the start of a successful conquest  which was not only just, but had also been foreseen and prophesized . It recounts how Columbus convinced Ferdinand and Isabella to fund his enterprise and his several voyages, with the addition of  observations  by Pizarro himself, which include a variety of anecdotes such as the arrest of the Cacique Caonabo. There follows the biography of Captain Alonso de Ojeda and his travels in the Caribbean and the northern part of South America, including Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana and Venezuela. He was instrumental in the founding of the first city of the New World, which he called Fer-Isabelica. Other notable biographies are those of Fernando Cort éz, with an account of his meeting with Montezuma and Francisco Pizarro and his exploration of Peru. Scattered among the travelogues is copious information on the types of government and social hierarchy enforced by the Conquistadores and their exchanges with local communities. A most interesting work and probably the most comprehensive (albeit biased) encyclopaedia of New World explorations available at the time. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..Thomas Philip (1781-1859), Earl of Grey, was the first president of the Institute of British Architects in London, founded in 1834. He was greatly interested in architecture, overseeing the remodelling of his London townhouse and of his seat at Wrest Park..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PIZARRO Y ORELLANA, Fernando.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868674498895,"sku":"L820","price":4500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L820-3.jpg?v=1781793654"},{"product_id":"lopez-de-palacios-rubios-joannes","title":"LOPEZ DE PALACIOS RUBIOS, Joannes.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A good copy of the first and only edition of this important commentary on the  Leyes de Toro  - a revolutionary set of laws for the Kingdom of Castile, some still recognized today. They were applied and retained way into the C19, as part of the legal systems of former Spanish colonies such as Louisiana, Texas and Trinidad. These 83 laws were debated in 1505 in the city of Toro, in Castile, and approved by a committee of major Spanish jurists, according to instructions left in the will of Queen Isabella, who wished to modernize the Castilian justice system. On this committee was Juan L‚àö‚â•pez de Palacios Rubios (1450-1524), trained at Salamanca and known as  El Doctor  for his canon law expertise. He famously wrote the  Requerimiento  (1513) - the declaration of the Spanish monarchy seizing of New World territories, which was read to the native populations to  inform  them of the conquerors  rights. The present work provides the text (in Castilian), followed by Rubios  commentary (in Latin), for each  ley de Toro , which joined three previous sets of laws: the Partidas and ordinance of Alcal‚àö¬∞ (1343), and the Royal Ordinance (1496). The  leyes de Toro  were introduced  to regulate the forms to be observed in making wills; to establish rules relative to testamentary successions, and to successions  ab intestato ; to fix the donations which a father or mother might make of a part of their estate to some of their children to the prejudice or others,   and the alimony due from the father to his illegitimate children  ( Early Laws , p.154). Rubios prepared a thorough alphabetical index listing the hundreds of questions discussed in his commentary, including alienation of goods, dozens of cases concerning inheritance by legitimate and illegitimate ( spurii ) children, the status of prematurely deceased heirs in the definition of family genealogy for the purpose of inheritance, clandestine marriage, Christian burial for the executed, and whether a father can revoke a donation. A scarce commentary, in a remarkably well-preserved copy. .\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LOPEZ DE PALACIOS RUBIOS, Joannes.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868675809615,"sku":"L4085","price":3250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4085-2.jpg?v=1781793652"},{"product_id":"bergeron-pierre-with-bergeron-pierre-bontier-pierre-le-verrier-jean","title":"BERGERON Pierre. (with) BERGERON Pierre. BONTIER, Pierre. LE VERRIER Jean.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare first editions of both these important works, one of the first major French editions on the history of maritime exploration; printed separately but designed to be together. Soly reprinted the first work in 1630 so it could be re-issued with the first edition of the second work (ustc records both the 1630 editions under the same reference). ‚ÄúOne of the first studies of the history of navigation to be undertaken in France‚Äù Borba. ‚ÄúAn Americanum of prime importance‚Äù Lande. Bergeron‚Äôs Traicté is a comprehensive history of French exploration with additional accounts of Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian and British expeditions. There is much detail on the voyages to New France undertaken by Sieur de Mont, Lescarbot, Poutrincourt, Champlain, Cartier, Alfonce, François Pyrard, Jean Mocquet, Vincent Le Blanc and others. It includes accounts of the attempted Huguenot settlement of Florida by Jean Ribault (particularly the massacre of the French Huguenots by the Spanish in Florida) and French exploration in Brazil. The chapters on Canada give detail on the native tribes (including polygamy), missionary efforts, and territorial claims up to 1627. Bergeron, following in his father‚Äôs footsteps, became a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris and then councillor to the king and to the chancellery of the Parliament of Paris. ‚ÄúPierre Bergeron (1580?‚Äì1637?), (was) a French polygraph, eulogist, historian of French colonisation, editor of medieval travel narratives, and rewriter of testimonies by contemporary French travellers to the East .. Bergeron tried to disappear behind the travellers he gave a voice to, and therefore refused to appear as the author of these narratives ‚Ķ As a conseiller and a go-between with booksellers and men of letters, Bergeron was in close contact with the Parisian publishing world. .. Bergeron‚Äôs fidelity to the monarchy and his anti-Spanish politics lay at the centre of his work as a colonisation propagandist and historian. His Traité de la navigation appeared three years after the 1626 assemblé of the Notables. .. Bergeron attacked the papal pretensions to divide the world, but went further, as he was the first to introduce in France Grotius‚Äôs argument of the freedom of the seas, which he used to advocate a French expansionist discourse. The treaty was followed by an edition of a manuscript of Bethencourt‚Äôs conquest of the Canary Islands, transformed into a French Christopher Columbus, in order to give France a certain historical primacy.‚Äù Nicolas Médevielle. Bergeron, after finishing this treatise, was commissioned by Galen de Béthencourt with editing the celebrated travel memoirs of his great-grandfather Jean de Béthencourt. This description of the French conquest of the Canaries, the first chapter in modern colonial history, was based upon the manuscript ‚ÄúLe Canarien‚Äù, an authority of exceptional value for the history of the conquest, not only a contemporary witness, but written by men who were present at, and took part in the events and recorded them with a wealth of life-like and picturesque detail. This is its first appearance in print. Bergeron seems to have worked from the Mont Ruffet manuscript of c. 1482. His motivation for publishing was undoubtedly to encourage a sense of French pride in their conquests in the hope of further expeditions.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eWith excellent provenance: from the important library of Louis Urbain Le F√®vre de Caumartin, ‚ÄúLe Grand Caumartin‚Äù, finance minister at the end of Louis XIV‚Äôs reign. He was an early protector of Voltaire. He amassed a very fine library at his Chateau de St. Ange with well over three thousand books.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BERGERON Pierre. (with) BERGERON Pierre. BONTIER, Pierre. LE VERRIER Jean.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868680757583,"sku":"L3822\/1\/2","price":9500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_4506-copy.jpg?v=1781793642"},{"product_id":"benzoni-girolamo-bry-theodor-de","title":"BENZONI, Girolamo; BRY, Theodor De.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.The second or  counterfeit  issue of the first edition of the fifth part of Theodore De Bry s 8-part series on the discovery of America, complete with map of New Spain, a territory covering the southwestern portion of North America, and extensive engravings based on eyewitness accounts, accompanying text from Girolamo Benzoni s second book of his  Novae Novi Orbis Historiae . We only know of  two editions of the fifth part of the Great Voyages ; the second can be identified by the  Hia  abbreviation on the t-p, by the 13 lines on the first page of the preface, instead of 11 and various typographical differences, including a smaller font the notes being in italics and the plates being numbered with Arabic figures instead of Roman numerals. It contains a three-part narrative spanning the years 1541-56, the work provided detailed descriptions of the native landscape, alongside accounts of Spanish exploits, including their methods of conquest and government. The present argumentum reveals the second book s focus on Spanish ventures into the American continent and the maltreatment of the local people, ultimately contributing to the propagation of the Spanish Black Legend. The 21 chapters of text discuss the enslavement of the local population, import of slaves from Africa, encounters with pirates, local customs including the preparation of food, sleeping habits, dances and architecture, and responses to Spanish occupation. This is followed by a series of spirited engravings by De Bry, accompanied by descriptions, each one corresponding to a chapter of the text. More often than not, the Spanish conquistadors are presented committing acts of gross violence against the defenceless natives. The scenes are graphic in their portrayal, placing the harsh criticism of the Spanish into more visual terms.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..While De Bry never personally left Europe, Benzoni set out for the Americas in 1541, at the age of 22, acquiring a great deal of wealth on his trip, before losing it in a shipwreck and waiting several months in Cuba for a ship back to Spain, arriving in Sanlucar in September 1556. During his travels, he visited the West Indies, Venezuela, Hispaniola, Colombia, Central America and Peru. No trace of him survives beyond his dedication for the 1572 edition of the text..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"BENZONI, Girolamo; BRY, Theodor De.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868700025167,"sku":"L4013","price":11500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3576.jpg?v=1781793447"},{"product_id":"le-jeune-paul-brebeuf-jean-de-perrault-julien","title":"LE JEUNE, Paul; BREBEUF, Jean de; PERRAULT, Julien.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.A unique source for the early Jesuit missions to New France, an area which at its peak stretched from the Gulf of St Lawrence to Louisiana.  This Relation contains three reports: the first by Le Jeune, dated 28.th. Aug. 1635, ending on p.112; the second from the Huron country by Brebeuf, pp.113-206; and the third from Cape Breton, by Perrault, pp.207-219 . It paints a picture of the French colonisation of New France, North America and Cape Breton, relations with the inhabitants, and local First Nation culture. The Society of Jesus was granted a monopoly over the proselytizing of local inhabitants and produced yearly written reports detailing their progress until 1672, which were sent to Quebec to be checked and subsequently published in Paris. . \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..  The initial method of Jesuit missionaries like Paul Le Jeune was often to erect small, isolated, sedentary villages, or reductions, wherein the Montagnais would be instructed in the ways of agriculture, animal husbandry, and Christianity . .Le Jeune (1591-1664), writes the first and longest account of the present works dated August 28.th .1635.. He had ample experience with the indigenous people, having wintered with the Montagnais, the most southerly group of the Innu tribe, between 1633-34. He discusses Jesuit attempts to  civilise  and convert the so called  Sauvages , describes the effects of disease on the settlers and the locals, and lists some of the perceived advantages of colonisation, such as the banishment of famine and expansion of the French empire. At the end of the letter, he writes in addition to his own name a list of Jesuits who have been living with him in Quebec.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..In the following two letters,  Jean de Brebeuf (1593-1649) details his experiences with the Huron tribe in the Northeastern Woodlands of North America and Julien Perrault (1602-1647) discusses the Mi kmaq culture in Nova Scotia. All three authors describe the situation, climate, resources and local people, their reports highly anticipated in the French homeland. The tumultuous relationship with the locals is highlighted in the capture and murder of Brebeuf by the Haudenosanee in 1649. Appended is a short reflection of the Jesuits in New France, which contains a number of more general remarks as to the Jesuits  experiences with the climate, the locals and their relationship with God.. \u003cbr\u003e\n. \u003cbr\u003e\n..A remarkable insight into early first-hand impressions of the northern parts of the American continent and 17.th. C travel to America..\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LE JEUNE, Paul; BREBEUF, Jean de; PERRAULT, Julien.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868700320079,"sku":"L4451a","price":25000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/IMG_3770-copy.jpg?v=1781793446"},{"product_id":"josselyn-john","title":"JOSSELYN, John.","description":"\u003cp\u003eSecond, revised and corrected edition of the scarce first natural history of New England. John Josselyn (fl.1638‚Äì75) was an English traveller of whom little is known. He arrived in New England in 1638, and returned for nearly a decade in the 1660s, when he landed in Boston, before heading to his brother‚Äôs estate in Maine. Whilst not thoroughly scientific, his natural observations are among the earliest depicting the natural landscape, flora and fauna, and everyday life of colonial New England. The work begins with an interesting physical and topographical description of Boston and Scarborough, Maine, in 1663, including descriptions of the language of indigenous people: ‚ÄòTheir language is very significant, using but few words, every word having a diverse signification, which is expressed by their gesture; [‚Ķ] Their Speeches in their Assemblies are very gravely delivered, commonly in perfect Hexameter Verse‚Äô. Josselyn then describes the natural world and its medicinal properties: from birds (e.g., humming bird, pilhannaw, turkey, owl) to beasts (e.g., the bear, wolf, raccoon, porcupine, moose); dozens of fishes; snakes (the pond frog and rattle snake); insects (the flying glow worm); plants, divided into those that are also present in England, those which are only present in America, and have or don‚Äôt yet have a name ‚Äì with a charming folding woodcut of the hollow-leaved lavender, a dozen more including the humming bird tree and the marigold of America ‚Äì and those that were not originally in New England, but came with the English settlers. The penultimate section, titled ‚ÄòDescription of an Indian Squa‚Äô, including a description of indigenous female beauty and attire, and a very personal poem of the author‚Äôs eulogising of local feminine attraction ‚Äì very favourably compared with that of Europe. The last section is a chronological table of the colonisation of New England, from 1492 to 1672, when Bellingham was governor of Massachusetts. Interestingly, the last leaf includes a list of books sold by C. Widdowes at the Green Dragon, London, as well as an ad for remedies against consumption and the cough, and a ‚ÄòHomogenial Pill‚Äô, sold by Widdowes at his premises, for E. Buckworth, physician to Queen Anne.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"JOSSELYN, John.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868709953871,"sku":"L4441","price":25000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/20251023_171142-copy.jpg?v=1781793412"},{"product_id":"laet-johannes-de","title":"LAET, Johannes de.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst and only edition of this important work, one of several produced as part of early debates on the origins of indigenous peoples in America. Joannes de Laet (1581-1649) was director of the East India Company, a geographer and historian, and the author of a ‚ÄòHistory of the New World‚Äô (1625). His daughter Johanna moved to the colony of New-Netherland (between Connecticut and Delaware) in 1653, where she spent several decades as a successful businesswoman.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eLaet‚Äôs ‚ÄòResponsio‚Äô was part of a longer debate between himself, Hugo Grotius, and other European intellectuals, concerning the origin of the indigenous peoples of the New World. The traditional theory of their Central Asian Scythian descent was criticised for the first time by Grotius in ‚ÄòDe Origine Gentium Americanorum‚Äô (1642), where he suggested that North American peoples originated in Norway, Yucatan people in Ethiopia, and South American peoples in China. The controversy that sparked led to Laet‚Äôs publication of a response to Grotius in 1643, where he tackled the key issues ‚Äì who could have travelled to the New World in the past, and how ‚Äì concluding in favour of the Scythian theory for North and South America, that the Canaries and Africa could have provided useful intermediate stations for these migrations. Grotius replied in his ‚ÄòDissertatio altera‚Äô (1643), mainly with personal attacks on Laet‚Äôs historiographic and scholarly capabilities; in 1644, Laet published the present ‚ÄòResponsio‚Äô. Each chapter includes a quotation from Grotius, followed by Laet‚Äôs reply. Laet discusses dozens of issues, such as Columbus‚Äô knowledge of Dominica from Mercator‚Äôs map, theories proposed by travellers like Lescarbot, the origins of Greenlanders and the Norwegian language, migrations to Mexico, apparent similarities between the Huron and Norwegian languages, the discovery and habitation of Brazil, and the relationship between the Peruvian and Chinese languages, among many others. Laet wrote no more on the subject after ‚ÄòResponsio‚Äô, which however elicited other treatises by Georg Horn, J.-B. Poisson and Robert Comte. A most interesting witness to early ethnographic studies.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"LAET, Johannes de.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868709986639,"sku":"L4424","price":2250.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage_cfba0642-37a7-418f-9756-6127af2adfe8.png?v=1781793412"},{"product_id":"purchas-samuel-1","title":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","description":"\u003cp\u003eAmong the double-page maps – here remarkably fresh and clean, in very fine impression, with wide outer margins, and without repairs – shines Henry Briggs’ map of North America, produced by R. Elstracke before 1622. ‘The first printed map in English to show California as an island, it is one of the most important of the time. As a composite, place names are recorded reflecting the nationality of the discoverer, in English, French or Spanish’, with a note engraved in the map stating ‘California sometymes supposed to be a part of ye westerne continent, but since by a Spanish Charte taken by ye Hollanders it is found to be a goodly Ilande: the length of the west shoare beeing about 500 leagues’ (D. Rudderman Coll.). There is also a map of Virginia, published in 1606 after John Smith’s expedition, and one of Sir William Alexander’s voyages, illustrating New England, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. The map of China – present in vols III and V – titled in English and Chinese characters, is derived ‘from Luo Hongxian’s general map in his “Guangyu Tu” atlas of 1555’, with the addition of inset pictures (Shirley II, p.1650).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eA fine set of the first edition of this most famous illustrated collection of travel narratives, together with the fourth ed. of ‘Purchas His Pilgrimage’ printed in 1626. The most complete early encyclopaedia of American travel, summarising all the major expeditions to North and South America up to the 1620s, from Columbus to William Hudson’s voyage on the Half-Moon, Smith’s expeditions to Virginia, and those carried out by the Spaniards and Dutch on the West Coast. It includes dozens of stunning engraved maps of North and South America, the North Pole, China, the Middle East, and Greenland, among others, as well as woodcut facsimile renditions of Arabic documents, Ottoman tughras, Mughal illumination, and illustrated Mesoamerican manuscripts. ‘Purchas obtained the use of the copperplates from Hondius’ “Atlas Minor” (1607) […]. The great majority of the maps are from this source, and are here printed as part of the text. […] Purchas had further maps engraved: these include maps of India, China, Greenland, North America and Nova Scotia.’\u003c\/p\u003e \n\n\u003cp\u003eSamuel Purchas (1577-1626) was a cleric in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex. Whilst he never travelled further than a few hundred miles from his native town, he edited a collection of unpublished manuscripts left to him by Richard Hakluyt (hence the second title ‘Hakluytus Posthumous’), to which he added reports of sailors returning from their travels. The result was ‘Purchas His Pilgrimes’. ‘This great geographical collection is a continuation and enlargement of Hakluyt’s “The Principal Navigations”. At the death of Hakluyt there was left a large collection of voyages in manuscript which came into the hands of Purchas, who added to them many more voyages and travels […]. Purchas followed the general plan of Hakluyt, but he frequently put the accounts into his own words […]. The main divisions of the work fall into two parts: the first covering the world known to Ptolemy, the second coming down to Purchas’ own day. This fine collection includes the accounts of Cortés and Pizarro, Drake, Cavendish, John and Richard Hawkins, Quiros, Magellan, van Noort, Spilbergen, and Barents, as well as the categories of Portuguese voyages to the East Indies, Jesuit voyages to China and Japan, East India Company voyages, and the expeditions of the Muscovy Company’ (Hill). The four vols examine ancient voyages, customs and languages (e.g., the peregrinations of the Apostles and Patriarchs), the circumnavigation of the globe, explorations in Africa, Arabia, Persia, and India, voyages to Japan, China, the Philippines, and expeditions to the Middle and Far East. The fifth vol., also on world exploration, is considered the ‘fourth and best ed.’ (Sabin) of another travel work published by Purchas in the 1610s, especially important for the accounts of William Hudson’s explorations in North America.\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n\u003cp\u003eThe double-page maps of North America are remarkably detailed on the coastal areas, showing the Hudson River, dozens of locations in California, Texas, Mexico, Newfoundland, New Britain, Canada, and the Caribbean. A highlight are the woodcut reproductions of unusual alphabets, e.g., hieroglyphs, ancient magical alphabets, and cabbalistic, as well as Arabic, Glagolitic, Ethiopic, Armenian, Dalmatian, and others. Purchas also included woodcut reproductions – among the earliest instances of facsimile in print – of Middle Eastern and South Asian documents (e.g., a letter in Arabic from Sharefoo Boobackar, King of Moyela; a letter in Bani, the Tughra of the Ottoman Sultan) and Ottoman seals, which he found among the East India papers he had access to thanks to acquaintances among the company’s directors. Astounding are the two dozen woodcuts reproducing Mexican illustrated manuscripts with detailed captions and explanations. ‘The idea of a visual compendium of all known examples of a given class of Mexican antiquities was first attempted by Purchas. […] He commissioned line drawings of manuscripts previously owned by Hakluyt and Thevet. […] After Purchas’ death, these manuscripts became part of the collection of John Selden, who bequeathed them, in turn, to the Bodleian Library’ (Miller, p.5).\u003c\/p\u003e  \n\n \u003cp\u003eFrom the Library of the Admiralty Office overlooking Horse Guards, in Whitehall, formerly the administrative headquarter of the Royal Navy. A most appropriate provenance for a book of great voyages.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PURCHAS, Samuel.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868710609231,"sku":"L4539","price":97500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/purchas-1.jpg?v=1781793407"},{"product_id":"ribadeneira-pietro","title":"RIBADENEIRA, Pietro.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA good copy of the first Italian edition of the life of St Francisco de Borja (1510-72), an Americanum, with mentions of Florida, Brazil, Peru, and New Spain. Born and raised in Toledo, Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1527-1611) joined the Jesuit order in 1540 under Ignatius of Loyola, of whom he would later write the first biography. After studying theology and rhetoric at Leuven, Paris and Padua, he taught at Italian and German Jesuit colleges, was sent on missions to Belgium and England by Ignatius himself and held important posts in Italy. His  Vita  was first published in Spanish in 1592, and translated into Italian by Giulio Zanchini. Borja was Duke of Gand‚àö‚â†a and a nephew once removed of Emperor Charles V, in whose court he served as a young man. In 1546, after the death of his wife, he entered the newly-formed Society of Jesus; from 1555, he was Jesuit commissary-general of Spain and the Indies, and then Superior General.  Vita  recounts how, before he took office, no Jesuits had penetrated the West Indies under the Crown of Castile. However, a mission was quickly organised to Florida, and another in 1568, after the first had ended tragically. A most interesting description of their travel through the unknown wilderness is provided, as they carried all the ritual objects and books for the mass; again, they were all killed by the native inhabitants who, shortly after, fell to the ground, dead, after looking at the devotional books left behind by the Jesuits. Another section discusses New Spain, mentioning the travel of the first Jesuits who entered Peru, as well as the death of over 40 Jesuits on their way to Brazil, by the hands of Protestant crews with whom they crossed paths at sea. Many of the narratives include miracles enacted by sacred images and scenes of martyrdom.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Marchese Alessandro Valori was a Florentine aristocrat in the second half of the C17. His circle of intellectual friends met regularly at his Villa d Empoli. Corso de  Ricci was a C18  canonicus  in Florence, an ardent anti-Jesuit and brother of the Jesuit General.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"RIBADENEIRA, Pietro.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868712870223,"sku":"L4448","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/ribadaneira-L4448-1.png?v=1781793392"},{"product_id":"panciroli-guido","title":"PANCIROLI, Guido","description":"\u003cp\u003eLater edition of this very popular work on modern inventions, first published in Amberg between 1599 and 1602. It was first written in Italian by the jurist and antiquarian Guido Panciroli (1523-99) at the commission of his patron, Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy, and circulated in manuscript before it was translated into Latin with commentaries by Heinrich Salmuth for the publication of 1599-1602, whose edition this is. \u003cbr\u003e\n Divided into two sections, the work in the first focuses on the memorable and  lost  achievements of the ancient Romans, and in the second, which opens with Columbus s  discovery  of America in 1492, on recent inventions and those things that were unknown to the ancients, which include porcelain (a long section), artillery, alchemy, clocks, and printing and typography. The attractive frontispiece, which also includes a vignette of a printer s shop, reflects this division of the Old and New worlds, with its depiction of ancient Roman ruins on one side and Indigenous Americans on the other. Much of the force of the work in fact comes from the long commentaries by Salmuth, including a voluminous discussion of the New World and its indigenous peoples, guaiacum and other native plants, their medical uses, etc. This is part of a curious attempt to frame the various circumnavigations of the late fifteenth century by Columbus, Magellan, etc., in terms of ancient colonisations of less developed peoples. Indeed, Salmuth opens by discussing the Spanish justification for war with the Amerindians on the basis that they were infidels, Salmuth comparing this with Roman wars against  barbarians.  It is into this context that the discussion of typography and printing in the second part falls. Salmuth adds a long commentary exploring Panciroli s claims that Gutenberg s invention had been derived from Chinese printing practises conveyed to the Germans, which Salmuth considers as a common fact of history, i.e. that practices and technologies can exist in one society for hundreds of years before their discovery by another. For the Amerindians, however, all he can say is that they had syphilis for a thousand years before it came to Europe.  \u003cbr\u003e\n The section on ancient knowledge describes modern Italian libraries such as the Vatican in Rome, the Medici Library in Florence and the Venetian library of St. Mark s, as well as various monastic libraries, but also describing the burning of the great libraries of Alexandria and Constantinople. This first section is a rich and compendious survey of ancient life, chiefly Roman, including clothing, food and eating, warfare, measurements, timekeeping, funeral rites, games, etc. There are sections on ancient architectural monuments including stadia, baths, obelisks, triumphal arches, etc., the Pyramids and Sphinx at Giza, and descriptions of ancient building materials including marble. Panciroli also explores Roman legal practice, for example inheritance law including gifts of money to women and specifically to wives, which was regulated to avoid the secret or illegal transfer of property. He also describes the punishment of sending criminals to work for life in the mines. Other ancient inventions described include music and wine.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PANCIROLI, Guido","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868716343631,"sku":"L4797","price":1450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"spilbergen-joris-van-and-le-maire-jacob","title":"SPILBERGEN, Joris Van and LE MAIRE, Jacob","description":"\u003cp\u003eRichly illustrated first French translation of this popular account of Joris van Spilbergen s (1568-1620) circumnavigation and Jacob Le Maire s (1585-1616) account of Willem Schouten s (c.1577-1625) voyage to Australia between 1614-18, first published in Dutch 1619 with a Latin edition appearing in the same year. The maps include a fine folding world map after Ortelius as the frontispiece, the Manila Straits and the Moluccas, and a chart of Le Maire s voyage. The views of islands depict the often outsized local fauna, including monstrous fish, ostriches, sea lions, penguins, llamas and a condor, as well as a volcanic eruption in the Moluccas.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Schouten s voyage took him around the southern tip of the Americas   though avoiding the Magellan Straits and instead discovering the passage between Tierra del Fuego and Isla de Los Estados (now called Le Maire Strait)   round Cape Horn and then across the Pacific to New Guinea. This  was one of the most remarkable voyages ever undertaken and contributed much to the science of cartography, while the numerous versions in other languages attest its popularity, indicating how much the new passage into the Soutth Seas was appreciated  (Cox I, p. 41).  It was one of the most successful voyages ever undertaken by the Dutch. It resulted in the conquest of the Moluccas by the Dutch and greatly increased the power and the reputation of the Dutch East India Company (Cox I, p. 52). The Dutch were the first westerners to visit the North Tonga Islands, which include the Cocos and Traitors Islands, where there were skirmishes with the natives, and they also discovered the Hoorn Islands, where after initial conflict they were well received. Schouten s name is given to two sets of islands in New Guinea and Papua New Guinea that were explored on this voyage. Passing through the Moluccas the Dutch trade in bananas, coconuts, sago, rice and tobacco, before arriving in Ternate, the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company.  The discovery of the passage through the Straits of Le Maire and around Cape Horn, though entered in the log, were branded as infamous forgery by the Dutch officials at Ternate, and the ship itself confiscated  (Cox I, p. 41). Joining up with Spilbergen, Le Maire died on the return voyage to Amsterdam, his account passing to Spilbergen who, despite himself being on his deathbed, included Le Maire s account in his work.  \u003cbr\u003e\n Spilbergen s voyage is famous for his navigation of the Straits of Magellan in less than one month, which is described here and illustrated with a wonderful folding plate depicting the progression of the ships through the straits, a group of natives, a penguin, and scenes of the Dutch sailors hunting birds and being attacked and killed by natives. Passing up the west coasts of Chile and Peru, the Dutch make attacks on Spanish settlements at La Isla Sancta Maria, Concepci_n, Valparaiso, Quintero and Lima, as well as participating in sea battles by day and night, all of which are depicted here in the plates. The Dutch stop to refuel at Huarmey, where they occupy the abandoned fort from the Spanish, who had fled inland. More combats follow at Paita and, in Mexico, at Acapulco, which is captured, Santiago and Navidad. Crossing the Pacific they sailed through the Philippines and the Moluccas; appended to the narrative is Appolonius Schotte s (c.1579-1639) discourse on the disputed ownership of the Moluccas between the Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish and English, with a description of the forts on the islands.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"SPILBERGEN, Joris Van and LE MAIRE, Jacob","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868718014799,"sku":"L4498","price":25000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4498-Spilbergen-2.jpg?v=1781793366"},{"product_id":"carochi-horacio","title":"CAROCHI, Horacio.","description":"\u003cp\u003e.First edition of this influential grammar of the Nahuatl or Aztec language by the Jesuit Horacio Carochi (1586-1666), dedicated to Juan de Ma‚àö¬±ozca y Zamora (1580-1650), Archbishop of Mexico. The book deals with names, prepositions, verbs, comparatives and superlatives, adverbs and conjunctives and contains a wealth of Nahuatl vocabulary. It was instrumental in visualizing the  saltillo,  i.e. the Nahuatl glottal stop, with a grave accent, e.g. √®. It remained a standard work on the language and was reprinted in Mexico in 1759...\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..The first book printed in the New World was in Nahuatl:  One of the main reasons for the establishment of a printing press in Mexico centred around the need for materials to aid in the  spiritual conquest  of the area, the conversion of the conquered Aztec empire to Christianity. Thus it should come as no surprise that one of the first, if not the first, book printed in Mexico would be in Nahuatl. Throughout the next three centuries, the Nahuatl language continued to occupy a position of importance in the output of Mexican presses  (John Frederick Schwaller,  A Catalogue of pre-1840 Nahuatl Works Held by the Lilly Library  in The Indiana University Bookman, No. 2 (1973), p. 69. ..\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n..There are legal records dating to the late C17th and early C18th in city of Toluca referring to a man by the name of Domingo Martinez de Castro; there is also a record of a man by this name whose sister, a nun, applied for custody of a slave.  .. .\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003cbr\u003e\n.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"CAROCHI, Horacio.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868719620431,"sku":"L4768","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4768-carochi-2.jpg?v=1781793360"},{"product_id":"rosaccio-giusppe","title":"ROSACCIO, Giusppe.","description":"\u003cp\u003eA lovely sammelband of rare scientific works by the Italian cosmographer, geographer, physician, astrologer and traveller Giuseppe Rosaccio (c.1530-c.1620). Rare fourth ed. of first work, first pub. 1592; third ed. of second, first pub. 1593; extremely rare third ed. of third, first pub. 1593; and extremely rare second ed. of fourth, first published 1594.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe first work, charmingly illustrated, is a geographical and astronomical texts describing the earthly and heavenly spheres, with lunar tables. The characterful maps depict the major continents with their chief cities, mountain ranges, rivers and lakes, with occasional fanciful depictions of tribal tents, trading vessels, hippocampi and giant sea fish. Australia and New Guinea are depicted as one contiguous land mass with Antarctica, with trees and shrubs, fierce-looking mountains and even what appear to be subterranean fires.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e \u003cbr\u003eThe second work is a cosmographical history of the world, beginning with the creation to the age of the biblical patriarchs and Noah's Flood, 1656 years, and running to the modern day, with dates of the elections of popes, reigns of kings and queens, battles and extraordinary astrological, meteorological and medical phenomena, freakish births, etc. The third contains a brief discourse on the nature of time, preceding tables of astrological ephemerides describing the movements of the moon, sun and planets: the lunar and solar tables cover the years 1594-1612 but the planetary table - showing which planets will govern fertility or sterility in which year - runs to 1705. The final work is a brief philosophical and medical treatise on the perfect nature and proportions of man, which ends with a brief annual regimen of diet, bathing and exercise for preserving good health: no honey in February, sweets and sweet wines in March, don t wash your head in January or October, etc. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOriginally from Pordenone, Rosaccio was an itinerant philosopher who moved around the noble courts of Italy and travelled to Constantinople. He spent time in Venice and then from the 1590s was based permanently in Florence, healing the sick and selling elixirs [and presumably these tracts] from a market stall set up in a square outside the grand ducal palace (Edina Adam, The Personification of Venice in Master Drawings, 55. 3 (2017), p. 313). It was during this period that he also published several separate planispheres and maps.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"ROSACCIO, Giusppe.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868720832847,"sku":"L4241","price":3850.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/L4241-Rosaccio-7.jpg?v=1781793353"},{"product_id":"bocanegra-juan-perez","title":"BOCANEGRA, Juan P érez.","description":".Rare first edition of this guide to the ritual of the Catholic church in Lima in Spanish and Quechua, the Indigenous Peruvian language, with  the first piece of vocal, polyphony printed in any New World book,  the Quechua hymn to the Virgin Mary, Hanaq pachap kusikuynin, in four voice parts, composed sometime before 1622 (Robert Stevenson, Music in in Aztec \u0026amp; Inca Territory (Berkeley: 1968), p. 280). Plainchant notation had been printed in Mexico as early as 1556, anticipating by 142 years the publication of the 1698 edition of the Bay Psalm Book, the first book published in North America to contain printed music, but only monophonic bass parts. The first Quechua texts were printed around 1584-85, by the first printing press in Lima by the Jesuits in 1581. .\n.\n..Juan P érez Bocanegra (d. 1645) was a Spanish Franciscan who became expert in the Indigenous languages and culture of Peru. He taught Latin in Lima before moving to Cusco, where he served as cantor at the Cathedral of Santo Domingo, before becoming a parish priest in Andahuaylillas, where he commissioned extravagant baroque decorations for the church. When this manual was published, the Jesuits controlled his parish, and he crucially disagreed with them over doctrinal questions such as whether entire Indigenous communities should be confessed, as well as over translation into Quechua. The Jesuits preferred Spanish loan words that would avoid doctrinal confusion, while Bocanegra was sensitive to the Andean context, for example choosing to translate Dios into the name of the sacred mountain Huanacari. He possibly sought to avoid detection by preventing his Quechua and Spanish translations from aligning perfectly, providing simple Spanish paraphrases, or no Spanish translation at all (see Bruce Mannheim,  A Nation Surrounded  in Native Traditions in the Postconquest World (Dumbarton Oaks: 1998), p. 392). .. .\n.\n..The manual includes prefatory Latin poetry and a sonnet in Quechua, the Nicaean creed in Quechua, and the forms for the sacraments in parallel Quechua and Spanish: baptism; confirmation; penitence, with forms of confession for different sins including luxury, envy, etc., and against those who do not pay debts, commit incest, etc.; the Eucharist, including masses for Easter and the dead; extreme unction; and marriage. There follow forms for writing parish records, a brief catechism of Catholic doctrine in Quechua, prayers and hymns in Quechua, with the printed music, and a calendar of festival days.  .\nThis rare volume   is not noticed by Brunet, Ternaux, or Ludwig  (Sabin).","brand":"BOCANEGRA, Juan Pérez.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868722602319,"sku":"L4503","price":17500.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/files\/titlepage-2.png?v=1781793339"},{"product_id":"pinelo-antonio-de-le_n","title":"PINELO, Antonio de Le_n.","description":"\u003cp\u003eRare second, enlarged edition of Michel Angelo Lapi s Italian translation, first published 1655, of this scarce account of the life of Saint Toribio Alfonso of Mogrovejo (1538-1606), Archbishop of Lima from 1579, with details of his beatification and canonisation, the original Spanish ed. was published Lima 1653. From a small village in Cantabria in Spain, the unheralded Toribio received a surprise appointment as Grand Inquisitor by Philip II, after which he was elected to the Archbishopric of Lima. There he supposedly confirmed half a million people, including the Peruvian Saints Martin de Porres and Rose of Lima, a Dominican nun from a noble Spanish family, who was the first person born in the Americas to be canonised..\u003cbr\u003e\nThe book relates Toribio s incredible journeys on foot around the more inaccessible parts of Peru, for which he was famous, including precipitous nocturnal journeys across mountainous terrain with his native guides. There are several chapters describing Toribio s saintly virtues and the miracles he performed before and after his death. These include protecting the town of Mayobamba from storms and bad air, with which it was particularly afflicted, [etc.]. The book begins with the decree of Toribio s own canonisation in 1635 by Pope Urban VIII, and at the end are a number of prayers and pleas (instantia) invoking Toribio, along with several letters from clergy in favour of his beatification and canonisation, as well as texts of documents relating to the process.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PINELO, Antonio de Le_n.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868723749199,"sku":"L4895","price":2450.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"paul-v-pope","title":"PAUL V, Pope.","description":"\u003cp\u003eUnrecorded indulgence purchased by a Spanish colonial resident in Mexico on behalf of a woman Spanish settler. It was issued in Madrid by the Consejo y Comisar√≠a de Cruzada, an institution with papal authority but controlled by the Spanish crown, which administered the Bulas de Santa Cruzada, or Bulls of the Holy Crusade, papal indulgences granted to the Spanish Crown and sold in Spain and, from 1578, its colonial territories. The income was originally intended exclusively for the fighting of heathens and heretics, but over time went straight to the Spanish monarchy, and as late as the early nineteenth century was used to prop up expenditure in the colonies. This indulgence refers specifically to Spanish territories in the Americas and Philippines, where it was evidently offered for sale and most likely printed, given the quality of the typesetting and paper.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe main text states the necessity of the intercession of all the saints for those in purgatory, as well as the torments and horrors of eternal incarceration in the fires of Hell. Cathalina Perez Molero is recorded as having established a sugar hacienda with her husband Pedro de Ylara in Xalapa, near Mexico City, which eventually failed. In the mid-C17th, however, Ylara was a wealthy and important residents of Xalapa, and is recorded as having owned slaves. The connection with Joseph de Goitia appears to have been business related; a Don Joseph de Goitia was killed in the Pueblo Indian Revolt in New Mexico in 1680. Examples of plenary indulgences purchased by de Goitia for Cathalina date to 1662 and as far back as 1639, implying a regular programme of plenary indulgence buying on behalf of Cathalina, who apparently therefore died as early as the 1630s, since indulgences were not meant to be purchased for other living people. Officially, the sale of indulgences had been banned since 1567 after the Council of Trent, but Pope Paul V (1550-1621) had authorised them for sale in the Spanish colonies. De Goitia paid four reales for this example.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PAUL V, Pope.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868724076879,"sku":"L4909","price":3950.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]},{"product_id":"piso-willem-et-al","title":"PISO, Willem et al.","description":"\u003cp\u003eFirst edition, substantially expanded and revised from an earlier work of 1648, and superbly illustrated, of the Dutch naturalist Willem Piso s (1611-78) study of the medical natural history of the West Indies, issued with Georg Marggraf s (1610-44) topographical, anthropological and natural-historical survey of Brazil and Chile, with descriptions of the culture and languages of their Indigenous inhabitants, Jacob de Bondt s (1592-1631) natural-historical work on the East Indies, a hotch-potch of new material and portions of and an earlier published work, and, finally, a second, short botanical work by Piso on the medicinal and aromatic plants of the Indies, which appears for the first time.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003ePiso and Marggraf had undertaken a research voyage together to Brazil under the patronage of Johan Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1604-79), governor of Dutch Brazil, their work being published in 1648 as Historia Naturalis Brasiliae, edited and with contributions by the geographer and director of the Dutch West India Company, Johannes de Laet (1581-1649). Probably de Laet s most important role was the decoding of Marggraf s work, written in a secret cipher before his death in Angola in 1644. A decade later, Piso essentially highjacked the project, putting his own name on the title (which had previously carried only the dedication to Nassau-Siegen), inserting numerous laudatory poems to himself in Latin and Greek, and augmenting it with his new work on aromatic plants. Piso also chopped and changed de Bondt s work on the East Indies, De Medicina Indorum, 1642, with new material, which he notes that the author had left unpublished on his death in Batavia in 1631. It was Piso s treatment of Marggraf, however, that led to public censure. First, Piso actually reduced Marggraf s name on the contents page (*2r), giving it a smaller font than that used for his own, whereas in the first edition they had received equal billing. More seriously, Piso severely cut and even appropriated Marggraf s work, which in the original had run to eight books, and was accused of butchering it with numerous errors and misprints. The illustrated descriptions of animals for example, were simply lifted from Marggraf s section and brought into Piso's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRather disconcertingly for a book on the marvellous natural qualities of Dutch Brazil, Piso begins with a description of all the diseases that commonly arise in the West Indian climate, including  Lues Indica , a syphilis-like venereal disease that he notes can be transmitted sexually and hereditarily, caught from rotting food, and affects Africans, Indigenous and Europeans alike. The remainder of his work is a survey of the sea animals, birds, mammals, reptiles, insects, amphibians, and plants of Brazil, frequently with reference to their dietary and medicinal qualities. Piso gives their Indigenous names first, along with their Dutch, Latin and Greek names, where appropriate. There are flashes of his personal experiences in the Americas (besides comments on the taste of various animals), such as his observation that tortoises make a  kik kik  noise. There are illustrations of Black slaves working a sugar-mill, grinding the cane and cooking it in pans, under the direction of Europeans, with a description of the process, and another showing them grinding cassava flour. His short work at the end of the volume describes medicinal plants from both Indies, with their products, including nutmeg and mace (p. 173) and chocolate and cacao (pp. 196-198).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe remnants of Marggraf s work include a description of the longitude and latitude of Brazil and Chile, with annual tables of the winds and climate, recorded by him between 1640-1642. He then describes the Indigenous Brazilian population, their physical qualities, health, and the diseases to which they are subject, the clothing of their men and women, their houses, food, warfare, religion, and language, the latter section derived from the grammar of the Jesuit Joseph of Anchieta (1534-97), with a brief dictionary. The same is then repeated for the native inhabitants of Chile. The work ends with a fine woodcut of a llama. De Bondt s work opens with several dialogues in which he relates the climate and food of Batavia, before describing, much like Piso s work, the diseases of the East Indies, with illustrated accounts of the medicinal properties of its flora and fauna, including a description of the tea plant.\u003cbr\u003e\n Owing to the fact that a number of the woodcuts in this work are reproduced from the former this is sometimes said to be a second edition. It is in fact a different work, as a comparison of the contents will prove  (Sabin).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"PISO, Willem et al.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57868724207951,"sku":"L4832","price":6750.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}]}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1016\/2425\/0703\/collections\/Screenshot_2026-06-12_at_5.12.41_PM.png?v=1781280786","url":"https:\/\/www.sokol.co.uk\/collections\/americana.oembed","provider":"Sokol Books Ltd","version":"1.0","type":"link"}