Anghiera, Pietro Martire d' [Peter Martyr]

De rebus oceanicis et novo orbe decades tres ... item eiusdem de babylonica legatione, libri III, et item de rebus aethiopicis, indicis... Cologne: Gervinus Calenius & heirs of Quentel, 1574



8vo (6½ x 4 in.; 165 x 102 mm). Decorative woodcut initials; small wormtrack in foremargin of first few leaves, library stamp erased from title, tiny marginal ink smudge on one page. Contemporary blind-tooled pigskin, decorated in a panel design with ropework in central panels and roll-tooled heads in the frame, one with initials "H W," supralibros "I B B" with date "1575;" soiled, backstrip mended with manuscript title renewed, ties gone. Cream cloth drop box.

Dominican monastery, Würzburg (manuscript exlibris recording it as a gift "from Brother Thoma Heyden, professor in that city")

Alden-Landis 574/1; Borba de Moraes II, 532; Palau 12595; Sabin 1558

An early authoritative history of the discovery and conquest of the New World, containing the first account of Balboa's sighting of the Pacific Ocean, as well as the earliest account of Cabot's discoveries along the northeast coast of America (Decade III, Book 6). Anghiera was the first writer to emphasize the importance of his countryman Columbus and his discovery. As an Italian scholar, living in Spain from 1487, he was a friend and contemporary of Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, Magellan, Vasco de Gama, and Cortes. Through personal correspondence with the navigators, and from the examination of documents to which he had access as an official of the Council for the Indies, he was able to record the events surrounding the discovery of the New World.

The first edition of the first "decade" was published in 1511. Two more decades were added in 1516 and the first complete edition of eight decades appeared in 1530. The work was translated into English in 1555, and used by Hakluyt, who himself produced in Paris (1587) an edition of the complete work. The present edition contains the first three decades, covering the years 1492 to 1516, together with the De insulis nuper inventis relating Cortes' expedition to Mexico, and the three books of the De babylonica legatione, describing Anghiera's diplomatic mission to Egypt in 1501-1502. Also included are miscellaneous writings by Damião de Goes, Portuguese historian and statesman, among them a description of Lapland and an account of the religion and customs of the Ethiopians.