Beschreibung:

Summario de la General Historia de L'Indie Occidentali Cavato da libri scritti dal signor don Pietro Martyre
Venice: October & December 1534. 4to (223 x 150 mm). 163pp., A-V4, A-Q4, +ii; A-C4, D2. Double-page woodcut map of Santo Domingo, 3 full-page and 1 smaller woodcut illustrations in text. Contemporary full vellum, ms. title to spine, five raised bands, in modern cloth folder and slipcase, spine gilt. Condition : first two leaves in facsimile, slight dampstaining in upper outer corner of the first thirty-four leaves, closed tear to f.56, manuscript start of an index on rear endpaper, likely lacks original final blanks, two small burn holes in map, not affecting any printed area, edges frayed to pp.3-5, lightly foxed; vellum rubbed and lightly soiled, corners bumped. Provenance : Vincenti Papera (ownership inscription); Francesco Antonio Papera (idem); Adolfo Borromei (inscrition on title of second part); Lionel H. Priesarch (his bookplate); Dawson, February 1943. Acquisition : purchased from William Reese Company, (2000), $35,000. an important collection of narratives and the work of several authors. perhaps the earliest voyage collection, a work of tremendous importance in the dissemination of knowledge of the new world to europe. The work is divided into three parts, which are rarely found together. The first part is presumably derived from the Decades of Peter Martyr. It draws from the 1530 edition (see lot 16), the first complete edition to present all eight Decades. The second part derived from the works of the great historian and chronicler of the early West Indies, Gonzalo Fernandez Oviedo. The pioneering work of American natural history, 'De la Natural Hystoria de las Indias', (Toledo: 1526) is virtually unobtainable, the present 1534 publication is the only form in which the first work of Oviedo can be found. Oviedo’s observations are the first accurate reports of New World plants and animals. He also provides one of the first accounts of Bermuda, where he tried to land while en route to Spain in 1515, only to be driven off by adverse winds. The distinction being the first obtainable edition is also true of the third part, a translation of an anonymous work 'La Conquista del Peru', (Seville: 1534). The work was likely assembled for publication by Giovanni Ramusio, later famous for his much larger collection, 'Navigationi…', which began publication in 1554. the earliest known map of santo domingo . The interesting and unique woodcuts in the text are both drawn from the work of Oviedo and incised by the Venetian printers. They are some of the earliest published images of the new world based on authentic experience. Arents 3; Church 69; European Americana 534/28; Harrisse 190; JCB (3)I: 114; Sabin 1565; Streeter Sale (1966) 13.