This is the first edition of the first extensive historical work printed in the Philippines and one of the important source works for that country’s early history.

A Spanish expedition from Mexico under Miguel López de Legazpi established the first permanent settlement on the Islands in 1565. From then on the colonization of the Philippines, like that of most Spanish colonial settlements, was inextricably linked with the missionary work of the Catholic Church. Their base of operations in the Far East was China, extending to the adjacent islands of Japan, the Philippines, Macao, Cochin-China, and elsewhere.

This account of the activities of the Dominicans in the Philippines, as well as in China and Japan, covers the period from 1582 to 1640. Begun by Diego Aduarte, an outstanding missionary for more than fifty years, it was continued after his death in 1638 by his collaborator, Domingo González.

Like most early works published on the Islands, this book was printed on fragile rice paper. Only a few copies survived the ravages of time and climate. It was reprinted in Zaragoza in 1693, with a continuation written by Baltasar de Santa Cruz. A copy of this edition is also present in the Mendel Collection.

Antonio Ricardo, an Italian printer, was probably brought to Mexico by the Jesuits, who had established schools there in 1572 and discovered they needed textbooks. Ricardo was authorized by formal license to go to Mexico as early as 1569, but there is no evidence that he went in that year. He printed three books in 1577, two in Latin and the title listed above. The Latin titles, probably used as textbooks, were printed in the Colegio de San Pedro, San Pablo y San Ildefonso, the Jesuit College. The Sermonario contains no statement as to where it was printed, but it may be assumed that it also was printed in the Jesuit College.

The first two items represented here are printed almost entirely in the native language, while the third is in Spanish and Mexican.

A detailed and vehement attack on Bishop Juan Ferro Machado’s recommendations for improvement in Spanish-Indian relations in the Province of Florida. Ayeta, one of the great figures in Spanish-American colonial history and a prolific and sympathetic apologist for the Franciscan missionaries, wrote in great detail to refute Ferro Machado’s charges that the Indians were ill-used.

Bound with the work of Juan Ferro Machado, number 36 in the exhibit.

The biographer and biographee of this pamphlet were two of the most eminent Jesuit missionary figures in the Spanish Southwest—present-day Arizona, New Mexico, and California. Father Balthasar, in addition to being the author of several “lives” of outstanding missionaries or figures in the Church, was himself a visitador through the troubled regions of Nueva España. He made an extended survey of these missions on the farthest fringe of Spain’s empire in America for King Philip V and recommended sweeping changes in administration and replacement of priestly personnel.

Father Picolo was an Italian priest who spent many years Christianizing the Indians of California. In 1707 he was appointed visitador of Sonora, when charges were being made that the missionaries there were negligent in their duties—a matter in which even the Inquisition intervened. Father Picolo reported that on the whole the missionaries were carrying out their duties properly and returned to California. He died in 1719.

Appended to this work are brief accounts of the lives and martyrdom of two other Jesuit missionaries in California—Father Lorenzo Carranco and Father Nicolàs de Tamaràl. Both were killed by the Indians in 1734.

Large paper copy of the first edition of the six-volume set of Blaeu’s “New Atlas” in Latin—one of the edition-de-luxe copies for royal libraries. This is one of the greatest geographical works ever published, a fine example of seventeenth-century Dutch cartographical art at the height of its brilliance. The present copy is one of the few that were specially bound, colored, and illuminated for the use of important statesmen and European royal families.

Map publishing reached its apogee in Amsterdam with Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571-1638), who was succeeded by his sons Johannes and Cornelius. Together the father and two sons made a notable contribution to the establishment of standard sailing charts for Dutch navigators. After their appointment as cartographers to the Dutch East India Company, no Dutch house engaged in foreign commerce was permitted to send marine charts to the Indies, or have them carried there by ships’ captains, unless they were made by the Blaeu family. Each succeeding edition of their great atlas was larger than the one preceding, constantly being corrected and amended with information brought back from abroad. With the destruction by fire of their printing house, with all the engraved plates, in 1673, the great work of the family virtually came to an end.

This is a biography of Father Pedro Juan Castini, an Italian priest of the Jesuit Order who came to Mexico in 1616 and was assigned to Sinaloa as a missionary. For twenty-four years, from 1617 to 1641, he devoted his energies to converting the Sinaloas (Cahita), the Zoes, the Huites, and the Chinipas Indians of the Southwest to Christianity. He died in 1663 in Mexico.

The engravings in this unusual collection, all richly colored, provide important information about the appearance and architecture of most of the cities of the world in the late sixteenth century. Figures and scenes in the foreground of the views provide interesting details of contemporary life and show the costumes of Holland, England, France, and most of the countries of Europe. In a number of cases the plates are embellished with coats of arms. All of the views are preceded by a brief historical description of the city depicted.

Among the exceptionally fine plans are those of Jerusalem, Antwerp, Cracow, London, Paris, Rome, and the series of Low Country towns in Volume III. Plates of particular American interest are the views of Seville, showing the house of Columbus, of Mexico, and of Cuzco (Peru) in Volume I.

This copy formerly belonged to Ferdinand Columbus, natural son of the great navigator, and has the following inscription in his hand on the last leaf:

costo este libro en sevilla 204 m Fs es de don H^do h^zo del almirante colon. Esta Registrado 2077. [The price of this book in Seville was 204 moidores and is the property of Don Hernando (i.e. Ferdinand), son of Admiral Columbus.]

The life of Ferdinand Columbus and the history of the great library he collected are described in Henry Harrisse’s Excerpta Colombiniana, Paris, 1887 (pages 1-41). Briefly, “Ferdinand Columbus was the first person, in the 16th century, to dedicate his entire time and fortune to assembling a library of all the outstanding works of science and literature that he could find for the sole purpose of aiding those who were interested in instructing themselves. ... Willed to his nephew under conditions that were not met, the library passed into the custody of the Cathedral [at Seville], where it was sealed up in a room and suffered centuries of neglect.” For the details of the partial dissolution of this great library, read further in Harrisse.

It is not known exactly when the present volume was removed from the library at Seville—probably some time in the eighteenth century—however, it was not before the book had endured the ravages of time and official indifference. The major damage fortunately is confined to the first four and last three leaves of the book. Though portions of the text are missing and the title page is partially repaired, most of the famous woodcut folding views have been preserved; only the view of Venice is entirely lacking.

The book itself is one of the most important publications of the fifteenth century. It is a narrative of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem made by Breydenbach, a canon of Mainz, with John of Solms and the knight Philip of Bicken. First published in Latin in 1486, it was translated into German, French, Flemish, and finally Spanish before the end of the century. The famous folding views are the first of their kind to be published and the first eye-witness pictorial representations by a known artist (Erhard Reuwich) to appear in a printed book.

Of all the fifteenth-century editions, this Spanish one is the rarest. The only other recorded copy in this country is in the Library of Congress. The immediate provenance of the one exhibited here is C. Fairfax Murray-Sir R. Leicester Harmsworth-Bernardo Mendel-Indiana University.

For the most complete description of this copy, see H. W. Davies, Bibliography of Bernhard von Breydenbach (London, 1911), 38-40.

This is the most important and most famous collection of voyages ever published. The volumes contain early narratives of Virginia, Florida, the East Indies, and America in general. The parts are illustrated with maps, views, and scenes of native customs. The best known of the engravings are those depicting the American Indians after the drawings of John White of the Virginia colony, and those of the Florida Indians after the drawings of Jacques Le Moyne.

Theodore de Bry left his native Lüttich for religious reasons and, together with his sons, founded a publishing house in Frankfurt. The story is related that the idea for publishing this collection was conceived on a visit to London in 1587.

The bibliographical complexities of the de Bry Voyages preclude any detailed description of the set in this exhibit catalog. In the following tabulation only the edition has been noted, without consideration of issue or state. The Baron Horace de Landau-J. K. Lilly, Jr. copy is indicated in parentheses.

Grands Voyages: First Latin edition, 13 parts: complete (Lilly: pts. X-XIII); Second Latin edition, 9 parts: pts. I, IV-VI (Lilly: pts. V-IX); Third Latin edition, 4 parts (Lilly: complete); First German edition, 14 parts: pts. III-XIV; Second German edition, 9 parts: complete; Third German edition, 2 parts: pt. VII; genuine Elenchus edition (Lilly).

Petits Voyages: First Latin edition, 12 parts: complete. The collection also includes the abridgment of the first nine parts in German by Philip Ziegler, America, Das ist, Erfindung vnd Offenbahrung der Newen Welt ... (Frankfurt, 1617); and the abridgment by Johann Philippe Abelin (pseud. for Johann Ludwig Gottfriedt), Historia Antipodum oder Newe Welt ... (Frankfurt, 1655).

This Bull confirms the privileges of the Mendicant Orders to administer the sacraments in the villages of the Indians.

This is a rare example of early Mexican printing. Printing was introduced into the New World in Mexico City about 1539 by Juan Pablos, a representative of Juan Cromberger, the leading printer of Seville. Antonio de Espinosa, the printer of this title and the second person known to have printed in the New World, first came to Mexico as a punch cutter in the employment of Pablos. The first book that he printed was the Grammatica Maturini of Gilberti, in 1559.

According to Wagner six other copies are known, four in the United States: Bancroft, Huntington, John Carter Brown (lacking the last leaf), and University of Texas.

For books printed by Juan Pablos see numbers 18, 27, 61, and 95 through 98.

The author of this first edition of the history of New Granada (now Colombia) and its Jesuit missions was a professor of mathematics and astronomy and one of the first members of the Royal Academy, founded in Madrid in 1713. Cassani relied heavily on the manuscript of Juan Rivero’s Historia de las missiones, which was not published until 1883.

First edition. Castellanos’ metrical chronicle is one of our most intimate and contemporary sources for the early history of the discovery and conquest of the New World. Although this point has been confirmed by various authorities, the book is comparatively less well known than most of the other sixteenth-century works dealing with this subject. It is a poem of fifty-five cantos, the first six dealing with Columbus’ discoveries and the remainder covering the years to 1560, including the exploits of Diego Columbus, Rodrigo de Arana, Nicolás de Ovando, Juan Ponce de León, Francisco de Garay, and the first account of the expedition of Pedro de Ursúa and crimes of Lope de Aguirre (which Humboldt has called the most dramatic episode in the history of the Spanish conquest).

In the preface, written by the celebrated historiographer of Peru, Agustín de Zárate, the remark is made that “among all the works written on the discovery and conquest of Peru and New Spain—including my own history of the subject—nobody had taken it upon himself to declare how, when, and by whom such a space of ocean had been discovered, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the provinces of Tierra Firme; where it ends, and how much the present and future centuries owe principally to Christopher Columbus, whose industry, endeavor and diligence, coupled with the infinite risks and perils which he and his companions suffered ... confounded those who contradicted him.”

Castellanos had a first-hand knowledge of a number of the events that he described and, having lived in America for several years, was personally acquainted with many of the famous men of whom he wrote.

As it indicates, the title exhibited here is only the first part of the complete work. The second and third parts remained in manuscript and were not published until 1847 in Madrid.

See Plate I, page 62.

First edition of this exceedingly rare chronicle. According to Markham, "This is one of the most remarkable literary productions of the age of the Spanish Conquest in America. It is, in fact, the only book which exhibits the physical aspects of the country as it existed under the elaborate culture of the Incas.”

This, the only Spanish printing of the first part of the chronicle, was reprinted in Antwerp the following year. The second part dealing with the history of the Incas was not printed until 1873; books three and four, the discovery and conquest and the civil wars, are still unpublished.

Cieza de León was one of the most critical of early Spanish writers on Peru. His chronicle deals with the geography, history, and ethnology of the Andean area. It is based on a journal kept by the author during seventeen years’ residence in the New World. Apart from the famous woodcut and description of the silver mines of Potosí, it also contains the first extended description of the Peruvian guanaco, or llama, and of the pepper-tree, or mollé, and the commercial and medicinal uses of its fruit.

The autograph of the author appears on the verso of the last leaf. The contemporary ownership signature of Antonio Álvarez de Toledo, 1554, appears on the title page.

See Plate II, page 63.

One of the most important works on the Philippines of the seventeenth century. Father Colín lived there from 1625 to 1660, ministering to the natives of Mindanao. The book, containing valuable information on the flora, fauna, geography, and languages of the archipelago, is based partly on unpublished material of Father Pedro Chirino. This work was reprinted in Manila in 1890.

The history was continued by Pedro Murillo Velarde, number 65 in this exhibit.

Known under the title “The Fierie Sea Columne,” a play upon the name of the Dutch author, navigator, and publisher, this kind of sea atlas—also known as Waggoner after Waghenaer’s famous navigational charts—formed the basis for scientific oceanic navigation.

Published in Dutch, French, and English, all editions of this atlas are extremely rare since they were usually mutilated and otherwise destroyed by weather, constant use, and myriad other hazards of seventeenth-century navigation.

The famous Basel edition of Columbus’ Letter, with pictorial representations of America. On the return from his first voyage Columbus sent three letters to Barcelona giving an account of his discoveries: one to Ferdinand and Isabella, one to Luis de Santangel, and a third to Gabriel Sánchez. No printed edition of the letter to Ferdinand and Isabella has ever been discovered. Two editions of the letter to Luis de Santangel have survived—one in folio (in the Lenox Collection of the New York Public Library) and one in quarto (in the Ambrosian Library, Milan).

The present copy is the Latin translation by Leandro de Cosco of the letter to Gabriel Sánchez. In this edition it is preceded by a drama by Carolus Verardus celebrating the capture of Granada from the Moors, the other great historical event during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. The letter of Columbus begins on the verso of leaf 29.

There are seventeen known editions of the Columbus Letter printed before 1501. They are the prime items in any collection of Americana. In addition to the title represented here, the Lilly Library possesses the 1497 German edition ( next item in this exhibition), the Rome, Stephan Plannck, 1493, “Ferdinand” edition (the first Latin printing), and the Rome, Stephan Plannck, 1493, “Ferdinand and Isabella” edition. The latter two are from the collection of J. K. Lilly, Jr.

This is the Frank B. Bemis copy.

The first and only known fifteenth-century edition of the German translation of Columbus’ letter to Gabriel Sánchez giving an account of the First Voyage. Since books in the vernacular were more prone to destruction than Latin books, which were primarily read by scholars, only nine copies of this German translation are known to exist. According to the colophon the translation was made from a Catalonian text, which, however, has been lost.

See Plate III, page 64.

First edition of this compilation of rules and regulations for the Archbishopric and Province of Mexico, reprinted in 1769 in Concilios Provinciales ... de Mexico.

This interesting imprint from the press of Juan Pablos, Mexico’s first printer, contains a number of unusual features. In the colophon, for the first time, he refers to himself as the first printer of Mexico: “ ... Las q̃les fueron acabadas y ymprimidas par Juā Pablos lōbardo, pmer impressor en esta grãde, insigne y muy leal ciudad d’ mexico ... .” There is also a highly uncommon reference to the price of the book being “vn peso y medio de tepuzque y no mas.”

The remarkable woodcut coat of arms of the Archbishopric of Mexico on the title page is reproduced in Wroth’s The Book Arts in Early Mexico with the caption: “There are many reasons for believing that this ... may have been made by Antonio de Espinosa,” who had been brought from Spain by Pablos as a type founder.

Printing was first introduced in the Western Hemisphere at Mexico City. While controversial issues have been raised as to the identity of the printer and the beginning date of printing in Mexico, the first printer whom we can identify by the products of his press was Juan Pablos, or Giovanni Paoli, a native of Brescia. He was brought to Mexico probably through the influence of Bishop Juan de Zumárraga and had been an employee of the Seville printer, Juan Cromberger. The contract between Cromberger and Pablos was strict and was to last for ten years. Cromberger would pay transportation to Mexico for Pablos, his wife, a pressman, a Negro slave, and the press and printing supplies. At the end of ten years there was to be a settlement of accounts and Pablos was to receive one fifth of the net profits. All publications were to bear the imprint “en casa de Juan Cromberger.”

The imprints from this first press and others prior to 1601 are known as “Mexican incunabula” after their European prototypes and are equally as rare. Most of the early printed books from Mexico are of a religious nature.

See numbers 27, 61, and 95 through 98 for other Pablos imprints.

See Plate IV, page 65.

This is the report of a Portuguese voyage to Brazil written by a merchant and sent from Antwerp to the commercial house of the Fugger family. The author had been informed by his agent in the Madeiras about his (the agent’s) interview with the pilot of the ship that arrived there on October 12, 1514.

The newsletter describes the voyage, the encounter with the natives, the condition of the country, and the cargo brought back. One passage in the report may have referred to the Strait of Magellan (not then so named), and some authorities believe it may have influenced Magellan to start his voyage.

This copy is the first issue. Only two other copies are recorded: one in the State Library of Munich and another in the Germanic Museum of Nuremberg.

See Plate V, page 66.

Hernando Cortés was the greatest builder of the Spanish Empire in America. By use of flattery, intrigue, diplomacy, and force he was able, with a small number of troops, to conquer the Aztec Empire and make the Spanish masters of the central provinces of Mexico. Much of our present-day knowledge of these historic events is based on letters, or more accurately, field reports, which Cortés wrote to Emperor Charles V. In this series of letters Cortés recounted all that happened from the time he sailed from Cuba in 1519 until he returned from the expedition into Yucatan in 1526. The First Letter has never been found; the Fifth Letter, or a copy, was discovered in the Imperial Library in Vienna and first published in the nineteenth century.

The above title is the first French edition of the Second Letter of Cortés. It is of major importance because it contains extracts from the First Letter believed to have been lost. The First Letter was written at Vera Cruz, July 10, 1519. It has been conjectured that it was suppressed by the Council of the Indies at the request of Pánfilo de Narvaez, a Spanish rival of Cortés. We can only speculate that this Antwerp French edition was printed from a Spanish original now lost. It should prove conclusively that the text of the First Letter, at least in part, was available for printing.

The text of this Antwerp edition is dated Valladolid, October 1, 1522 (the Second Letter is dated October 30, 1520, from Segura). It contains descriptions of the newly discovered country and the magnificent Aztec capital, Temistitan (Tenochtitlan, now Mexico City), and narrates the memorable events of the conquest. The report describes the death of Montezuma and the retreat of the Spanish from Temistitan—June 20, 1520, known henceforth as la noche triste—and concludes with descriptions of the preparations being made from the refuge in Tlaxcala for the advance on Temistitan, which was soon to be besieged, destroyed, and captured.

This is the only known copy of this edition containing the complete text. It was acquired by the Comte de Lignerolles in 1892, when offered for sale by Damascène Morgand. Previous to the discovery of this copy the Comte de Lignerolles owned another incomplete copy. This is the Church copy now in the Huntington Library.

It is not known whether this edition was published with a printed title. The manuscript title is in a bold contemporary hand in French, written on paper similar, but not identical, to that of the printed text. It is mere supposition that it was the last leaf of another work preceding the Cortés title in a miscellaneous volume bound for its first owner.

In addition to the four Cortés letters exhibited here, the Mendel Collection contained the first Latin edition of the Second Letter (Nuremberg, 1524), the first Latin edition of the Third Letter (Nuremberg, 1524), the second Latin edition of both the Second and Third Letters (Cologne, 1532), and the first German edition of the Second and Third Letters (Augsburg, 1550). These copies were duplicates of items already in the Lilly Collection and were sold at auction in November, 1962.

See Plate VI, page 67.

First edition of Cortés’ Third Letter, which gives an account of events in Mexico from October 30, 1520, to May 15, 1522.

Dated at Coyoacan, May 15, 1522, most of this report is given over to the seventy-five-day siege and capture of the Aztec capital city of Tenochtitlan.

First Italian edition of the Second Letter of Cortés, taken from the Latin version of Petrus Savorgnanus. With the rare woodcut map of Mexico City and the Gulf region, so seldom present that many bibliographers doubted a map belonged with it. On that part of the map depicting the Gulf of Mexico, the name “La Florida” appears for the first time on a printed map. The plan of Mexico City is the first for any American city.

First edition of Cortés’ Fourth Letter, which covers the period from May 15, 1522, to October 15, 1524. The final eight leaves contain three reports of Pedro de Alvarado and Diego Godoy to Cortés. The letter is dated at Tenochtitlan, October 15, 1524.

The manuscript contains twenty-six autograph marginal notes by Philip III, over sixty autograph notes by the Duke of Lerma, sixty letters to the King signed by his confessor and political adviser, Fray Luis de Aliaga, and many other important documents.

The Consejo de las Indias, or “Council of the Indies,” was established by royal decree in 1524. Although the affairs of the newly discovered Spanish possessions had been administered previously by an ad hoc group of councilors, it was not until this date that political and judicial control over the Indies was formally charged to a royal council.

Except for certain commercial matters, which had been delegated to the Casa de Contratación in 1503, the Council of the Indies was the supreme authority (in the name of the King) for American and Philippine affairs. Its jurisdiction extended to every facet of colonial administration: all laws were promulgated by its authority, and a large number originated in its deliberations; the appointment of royal officials, both lay and ecclesiastical, fell within its province; it sat as the supreme legal body for most judicial cases regarding the Indies; it conducted the residencias following the departure of an official from office and appointed the visitadores who investigated colonial affairs for the crown. In addition, the Council of the Indies exercised strict powers of censorship over all printed materials originating either in Spain or the colonies. Rarely has so much power and authority been delegated to a single body, which, in itself, would indicate the exceptional importance of this manuscript.

See Plate VII, page 68.

Guiliano Dati (1445-1524), the Italian poet and bishop of San-Leone, is best remembered for his rendering into Italian verse the celebrated letter of Columbus announcing the discovery of the New World. The present poem, which he calls Second poem on India, refers in verse 9 ff. to a first poem on India, the title of which is known but no perfect copy has been preserved: “La gran magnificenza del prete Gianni,” or “I. Cantare dell India.”

Dati described in this secondo cantare the wonders of India, the fabulous land which everybody at this time believed to have been reached by Columbus in his voyage across the Atlantic.

This is the second recorded copy of this title, the other being in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome.

See Plate VIII, page 69.

This rare and interesting book printed at Lima contains sermons in the Quechua language with accompanying text in Spanish prepared for the use of the clergy among the Peruvian natives. The author, an Indian himself, had preached for fifty years among the rural population. He died in 1647 as a canon of the cathedral of La Plata.

The Quechua Indians were the dominant people of the Inca Empire. They are still the largest homogeneous body of Indians in existence, constituting the bulk of the Andean population of Peru and Ecuador. Their language is highly developed and capable of expressing fine shades of meaning.

This is a handbook of the Christian theology prepared for missionaries in Mexico by the Dominican Order under the direction of Bishop Zumárraga, printed in Spanish and Mexican in opposite columns.

The copy exhibited here is the second edition of the Doctrina Christiana. The first edition was printed by Juan Pablos in Mexico in 1548. Two variants of this second edition are known: one dated February 12 and the other April 17. Only three perfect copies of the February 12 variant are recorded: one copy in the British Museum, another at the University of Texas (the former García Icazbalceta copy), and this copy (the former Conway-Andrade copy).

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the foremost cartographers of Europe in the execution of navigational charts for pilots were the sea-faring Dutch. Continuing in the tradition of Waghenaer, the map- publishing family of the Blaeu, Colom, Jansson, and Goos, the enterprising Hendrick Doncker supplied pilots with maps for all the known world. The title exhibited here includes sea charts of Europe, the East Indies, South America, and California (map 30), as well as New York, Virginia, and New England (map 27).

The atlases of Doncker and of the other Dutch map publishers of the period often differ in contents and number of plates. This copy contains an unusually large collection of maps. See Tiele, Nederlandsche Bibliographie, 328.

A remarkably fine set of the first edition of one of the most beautiful of all sea atlases. The technical make-up of the book is so extremely complicated that practically all known copies vary in some respects.

The work is as valuable from a cartographic standpoint as it is rare, being far in advance geographically of the atlases of its time. It is the first sea atlas in which Mercator’s projection was used for all of the charts. The plates were engraved by Antonio Francesco Lucini over a period of eight years. It is divided into six parts, covering various aspects of sea law, longitude, maritime and military discipline, naval architecture, scientific or spiral navigation, and portolan charts.

Though printed in Italian in Florence, it is primarily an English production, since the author was assisted in his work by the discoveries of his brother-in-law, Thomas Cavendish, the navigator, and by the pilots Abraham Kendall and John Davis.

Sir Robert Dudley, natural son of Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite, the Duke of Leicester, after many fruitless years of trying to establish his legitimacy, finally left England forever and settled in Italy. Educated at Oxford, he became a highly proficient engineer and mathematician. In 1594 he made a voyage to the West Indies and visited the Orinoco and Guiana.

The Mendel Collection also contains the second edition of this title: folio, 5 volumes, printed at Florence in 1661.

See Plate IX, page 70.

The majority of the copies printed of this work were in octavo format with uncolored plates. This is one of the very few folio copies with an extra series of colored plates. The text and the plates are concerned primarily with the author’s observations while a resident in Colombia. The fifteenth plate is of a large beetle, Aserrador Hewitsoni, believed to be the first illustration of that insect.

The only contemporary printing of an account by the German conquistador Federmann of Ulm of his expedition of 1529-32 into present-day Venezuela. As an agent for the Welser family of Augsburg, he explored the territories granted to that great banking firm by the Emperor Charles V. In search of gold, the expedition penetrated into the hinterland and tried to reach the Pacific but was forced to turn back.

The Historia was first written as a diary in Spanish by a notary accompanying the expedition. Before embarking on his second expedition, from which he never returned, Federmann translated the report into German during a visit to his native city and left it with his brother-in-law, Hans Kiffhaber. The latter sent a copy to the imperial councilor Johann Wilhelm von Loubenberg. The present text was printed from this translation.

The narrative was not reprinted until Henri Ternaux-Compans included it in the first volume of his Voyages in 1837.

The Portuguese pilot Fernándes de Queiros, under the command of the Spanish admiral De Torres, set out by order of Philip III of Spain from Callao in Peru on December 21, 1605, in search of a southern continent. After the discovery of an island now known as Espiritu Santo in the New Hebrides group, De Queiros returned to America and thence to Spain, where he petitioned the King to authorize an expedition to discover Terra Australis. He was finally successful in his efforts but died before accomplishing his work. Several of his petitions or memorials were printed in Spanish in 1610, but only one or two copies have survived.

The voyage of Fernándes de Queiros was the first event in the history of Antarctic exploration. Its object was the discovery of the southern continent and the annexation of the South Pole.

This edition in German followed the original Spanish editions by one year. A French and an English translation appeared in 1617.

First editions of both parts of a comprehensive source for the early history of America, complete with Libro XX published several years after the first volume. This was intended to form the first part of a second volume, but because of the author’s death the remainder of the work was left in manuscript.

Oviedo joined the expedition of Pedrarias de Avila to Darien. He was appointed to numerous official positions in the Indies, including the governorship of the province of Cartagena and the command of the fortress of Santo Domingo. In 1532 he was appointed Chief Chronicler of the Indies. He resided in America nearly thirty-four years, although he made numerous voyages back to Spain in connection with his official duties.

The Historia general is one of the classics of the literature of the period of discovery and conquest. Despite the fact that Las Casas condemned it as containing as many errors as it did pages, the book has remained an indispensable source for the events that it covers. Although it is not without some bias in interpretation, and error of fact, Oviedo’s work is an extremely important repository of otherwise unavailable information.

The complete work was written in fifty books, although books 21-50 were not published until 1851-55. As in most known copies of the work the last leaf of the 1535 volume bears the autograph inscription and signature of the author.

This is the second edition of the first nineteen books of Fernández de Oviedo’s Historia (see preceding title) bound with the third Spanish edition of Francisco de Xeres’ Conquista del Peru. Xeres’ history is a separate work bibliographically; it has a separate title page, with a woodcut, signed gatherings, and foliation. The work must have been added to the Oviedo title after the latter was in the process of printing, for all copies do not contain “Y con la conquista del Peru” on the title page.

Xeres was secretary to Pizarro. This account of the conquest of the Inca Empire was written by the author while still in America but was printed upon his return to Spain. It gives a detailed account of the dramatic events of the conquest but minimizes and seeks to justify the wanton destruction and bloodshed that characterized the expedition.

See number 103 for another edition of the Xeres text.

First edition of the earliest history of New Granada (Colombia) and a work of the highest importance for the study of the pre-Columbian Chibcha Indians of Cundinamarca, as well as the conquest of the Bogotá plateau by Quesada. The author, a distant descendant of an Inca family, was born in Santa Fé de Bogotá in 1624. He became Bishop of that city and later of Santa Marta, where he was subjected to the indignities of Morgan’s English sea pirates.

The Historia begins with an account of the natives, their customs, laws, and kingdoms many years previous to the Spanish conquest. The narrative of the conquest is particularly important because Piedrahita had access to the papers of Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada, the conquistador of the Chibcha Empire. This author’s style represents a considerable advance over the prose writers of South America who preceded him. “He wrote clearly in what might not improperly be called modern Spanish.” (Moses, Spanish Colonial Literature, 351)

This is a report by Ferro Machado of his visitation to the Province of Florida from January to August, 1688, the first such mission by a Spanish official in almost one hundred years, during which he traveled more than five hundred leagues. The writer speaks of the urgent necessity of establishing a separate bishopric for Florida because of its distance from Havana and the many hazards and perils of the journey, particularly from pirates infesting the channel between the island and the mainland. Of particular interest are his many references to the Indians of Florida, their ill-treatment under the existing regime, and how their existence would be bettered and their adherence to the Christian faith strengthened by a local religious establishment.

An important pamphlet relating to the early history of Florida, this title has apparently gone unnoticed by most bibliographers.

This is bound with the rebuttal of Francisco de Ayeta, number 3 in the exhibit.

First edition of one of our best sources for the early history of Colombia and Venezuela. The author wrote three volumes, but only the first and second were printed. The third volume was left in manuscript, which, however, was considered lost although Medina stated that the Colombian historian Vergara y Vergara had seen it.

We are pleased to report that this manuscript of the notes for the missing third volume was recently found and acquired by the Lilly Library. Containing 473 leaves of text, the manuscript is bound in red velvet cloth and contains a decorative colored title page on vellum followed by two illuminated heraldic devices of the Flórez family, also on vellum. In addition to the text, which includes information on the Flórez, García, Acuña, Ocáriz, Araña, Yañez, Villareal, and Vizcarra families, to mention a few, the manuscript contains a number of folding genealogical charts of considerable interest.

First edition of the second printed collection of voyages. This work, more than any other, was responsible for spreading the news of early Portuguese and Spanish discoveries in Western Europe. Fifteen known editions were printed in Italian, Latin, German, and French between 1507 and 1528.

The book contains accounts of the voyages of Cada Mosto, Vasco da Gama, and Pedro Álvares Cabral, all relating to the circumnavigation of Africa and the water route to India. It also contains the first three voyages of Columbus (reprinted from the Libretto), the third voyage of Vespucci, the second voyage of Cortereal, the voyage of Pinzón, and others. Historians and bibliographers alike have been virtually unanimous in their appreciation of this work, and most would agree with the Brazilian bibliographer José Carlos Rodrigues, who stated that “ ... this book is not a jewel, it is a constellation of jewels” (Biblioteca Brasiliense, 436).

Three later Italian editions and an extremely scarce French edition are exhibited:

1. Paesi, Milano, Jo. Jacobo fratelli da Lignano, 1512. Sabin 50052.
2. Paesi, Venice, Zorzi de Rusconi, 1517. Sabin 50053.
3. Paesi, Milan, J. A. Schinzenzeler, 1519. Sabin 50054.
4. Sensuyt le Nouveau Mõde, Paris, [Jean Trepperel, 1516-17?] Sabin 50060.

The Lilly Collection contains the Itinerarium, Milan, 1508; Newe Unbekanthe Landte, Nuremberg, 1508; and Paesi, Venice, 1521.

See Plate X, page 71.

The map or sea chart which is described and explained in this booklet is known only in a unique copy in Munich. Fries was a noted physician and astronomer and an admirer of Waldseemüller, after whose death he republished and edited his works. The present essay was issued in three editions: 1525, 1527, and 1530. All are rare. The only recorded copies of this edition are our copy, British Museum, the Harmsworth, and a copy in Vienna. Of the 1527 issue there are copies in John Carter Brown and in the British Museum. The 1530 edition differs in many respects from the earlier editions.

The book is of special interest for the history of navigation, for it contains the earliest printed instructions on how to navigate by means of a compass and map. The countries are alphabetically arranged and described. There is a long reference to America and its discovery by Christoff Dauber of Janua—Dauber being a literal translation of Columbus into German. The sea chart described (on twelve leaves) is based upon the famous Waldseemüller map of 1516, of which there is one surviving copy only in Wolfsegg, Germany.

The enterprising Leyden publisher, printer, and bookseller, Pieter van der Aa (1659-1733), crowned his activities by printing the most extensive book of views ever published. In the preface he mentions that only one hundred copies of this colossal work were issued. In gathering this enormous quantity of plates, van der Aa also relied on the less extensive but earlier work by Georg Braun and Francis Hogenberg (Cologne, 1572-1618), item number 7 in this exhibit. These plates had gone through the hands of other Dutch publishers before they were bought by van der Aa.

Four volumes comprising 136 plates refer to America.

For the history of the plates see F. Bachmann, Die alten Städtebilder. Ein Verzeichnis der graphischen Ortsansichten von Schedel bis Merian Leipzig, 1939.

The original Portuguese edition of Antonio Galvão’s treatise on geographical discovery, containing among other accounts a report on Sebastian Cabot’s voyage to North America.

Boies Penrose wrote: “This volume is a chronological epitome of all discoveries and travels worthy of note, ancient and modern, undertaken up to the year 1555. ... [Galvão’s] later years are obscure, and he died in poverty, but not before he had composed this famous treatise of unique historical value. ... His book is ... wonderfully complete and very accurate ... ” (Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, 281).

This work apparently became quite scarce shortly after publication. Richard Hakluyt, in the preface to his English translation of 1601, complained that he could not obtain an original copy. Sabin at one time reported “only three copies known.” Insofar as we are aware, our copy and that in the John Carter Brown Library are the only ones located in the United States.

First edition of one of the important books on cosmography, navigation, and the early exploration of the Western Hemisphere, complete with the folding map of the world designed by Gaspar Volpelius, which is frequently lacking. This map shows both coasts of North and South America, Florida, Mexico, Cuba, the Straits of Magellan, and what Wagner (Cartography of the Northwest Coast of America) describes as a “peculiar” delineation of the Gulf of California.

The second part of the book contains extensive descriptions of various parts of the New World: Tierra del Labrador, Tierra de Baccallaos (New England), Florida, Nueva España (Mexico and Panama), and also describes “Castilla de Oro” and other parts of South America.

The section on navigation contains instructions for finding latitude by day or night by the inclination of the sun and moon and mentions Gemma Frisius’ method of determining longitude based upon the difference in time between noon at the meridian and noon at the point which the mariner wished to locate. This method, though simple, was not practical and did not become widely used until the end of the eighteenth century, when chronometers could finally be relied upon.

This commentary on John of Holywood’s (Johannes de Sacro Bosco) Tractatus de Sphaera has substantial American interest. Referring to his contention that areas in the torrid zone, and the polar region, were uninhabitable because of the extremes in climate, Glogoviensis cites Ceylon as a refutation of that argument and then continues: “And the same thing is confirmed by those who in the year 1501 and similarly in the year of 1504 have been sent out by the King of Portugal to discover the origin of pepper and other aromatic spices of value. They sailed beyond the equator and saw both celestial hemispheres and their stars and they found the origin of pepper in a place which they called the New World, which country has always been unknown hitherto.” This is, of course, a clear and direct reference to Vespucci’s two voyages, one year earlier than Waldseemüller’s Cosmographiae Introductio.

Apart from this specific American interest the book is further testimony to the impressive leadership of Cracow University in the astronomical and geographical sciences during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Glogoviensis here joins an impressive list of names including Corvinus, Stobnicza, Szamotuly, and finally Copernicus himself, who studied under Corvinus and the author of the present work.

This collection of voyages to America, Africa, and the East was first published in Basel in the same year as the above edition. Simon Grynaeus wrote the preface; the compilation was made by Huttich, a humanist of Strassburg. The Novus orbis is essentially an amplification of Montalboddo’s earlier collections (see number 38 of this catalog) with additional matter from other sources, including the travels of Marco Polo and Ludovico Varthema.

This copy contains the famous world map, a large folding woodcut by Oronce Finé, French cosmographer, mathematician, and one of the finest book decorators of the French Renaissance.

First edition. This memorial was written by Robert Harcourt to promote the success of his proposed settlement in Guiana. In March of 1608-9 he and his brother Michael, with a group of adventurers, sailed for the Spanish Indies and the north coast of South America. In August he took possession of a large tract of land “betweene the river of Amazones, & Dessequebe,” where he left his brother and part of the company. On returning to England he petitioned for letters patent to colonize the plantation. After they were finally granted, he wrote the present title to publicize his venture.

The Relation is an interesting and revealing description of the natural resources of Guiana, the Indians and their habits, and an eloquent plea for English interest in this area.

The tract has been reprinted several times, including an edition by the Hakluyt Society (1926).

These are presumably based on a series of life-size portraits which were at Cuzco when Frezier visited there in 1713. They were used in various early works on Peru, and in 1752 the Gentleman’s Magazine did a series of small woodcuts evidently taken from the same source.

According to Inca legends, their rulers numbered twelve as predicted by ancient oracles. Spanish historians for some reason listed only seven (omitting those listed below as numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, and 9). However, they included the legitimate heir of Huayna Capac and the illegitimate son, Atahualpa (our numbers 13 and 14).

Huayna Capac died in 1526, the year before Pizarro landed, leaving a divided kingdom between Huascar and Atahualpa. Dissension between the brothers soon developed, and a civil war ensued. Atahualpa defeated his rival, but in 1532 Pizarro treacherously seized him at Cajamarca and murdered him the following year.

The sole woman represented, Mama-Ocllo Huacco (number 16), was the wife of the first Inca ruler.

The collection includes the following portraits:

1. Manco-Ccapac
2. Sinchi-Rocca
3. Lloqque-Yopanqui
4. Maita-Ccapac
5. Ccapac-Yopanqui
6. Inca-Roca
7. Yahuar-Huaccac
8. Viracocha
9. Pachacutec
10. Inca-Yupanqui
11. Tupac-Yupanqui
12. Huaina-Ccapac
13. Huascar
14. Atahuallpa
15. Don Francisco Pizarro, Conquistador del Peru
16. Mama-Ocllo Huacco

Van Keulen was another great Dutch map publisher following in the footsteps of the Blaeus, Janssons, and Colom. Editions of his marine atlases often vary as to contents and appeared with Dutch or French title pages. This is a particularly fine example with a large number of maps which encompass the entire known world. Sixteen of these refer to America, including a fine chart of the Pacific and South Seas, while particular attention is devoted to the coast of Brazil, with ten very detailed charts delineating this area as far south as Buenos Aires. Other plates show the East Coast of Africa, Asia, and Australia in accordance with the extent of geographical knowledge at the time.

This manuscript resembles in some respects the Primera y Secunda Parte de la Historia del Peru by Diego Fernández de Palencia, written at the same time. The manuscript is divided into two parts. The first sixty-three leaves contain a general narrative of events relating to the Spanish conquest of America, which, although dealing chiefly with Peru, also contain important allusions to Florida, Brazil, the mines of Potosí, Chile, and other localities. The second part contains a history of the warfare between Gonzalo Pizarro and Diego de Almagro for the possession of Cuzco.

This manuscript came from the famous collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps, who apparently obtained it at the sale of Lord Kingsborough’s manuscripts in 1842. Insofar as we are aware, the manuscript is unpublished.

First edition. The first part of this work is a general history of the Spanish conquest and contains little information that had not been previously known. The second part, however, is the pillar upon which Gómara’s fame rests. Along with Cortés’ Letters and the later chronicle of Bernal Díaz del Castillo, the Conquista de Mexico is the primary source for information on Cortés’ subjugation of the Aztec Empire.

The author was secretary and chaplain to the great conquistador after his return to Spain in 1540, and as such he was in an excellent position to receive information regarding the conquest that might otherwise not have been disclosed. To an extent, Gómara presents a highly eulogistic portrait of Cortés and his accomplishments, and in this respect he has been severely criticized by his contemporaries and later scholars alike. While this may detract somewhat from the reliability of the narrative, nevertheless the work remains a good and relatively accurate account of the events it describes, presenting enough important material to justify its fame and position as one of the “classics” of the Spanish conquest of the New World. Its popularity may be attested to by the fact that within fifty years it was reprinted more than forty times and translated into French, Italian, and English.

The Mendel Collection also contains the following editions of this work which are exhibited:

• Primera y segvnda parte de la historia general de las Indias, Medina del Campo, Guillermo de millis, 1553. Wagner 2b.
• La historia general de las Indias, Zaragosa, Pedro Bernuz, 1554. Wagner 2e.
• Cronica de la nueva españa, Zaragosa, Agustin Millan, 1554. Wagner 2c.

The Lilly Collection contains the Primera y segunda parte de la historia general de las Indias, Zaragosa, Agustin Millan, 1552. Wagner 2a.

First edition of an important book that contains an early and reliable description of the vast region known as “Gran Chaco” which extends through the eastern part of Bolivia, western Paraguay, and northern Argentina. Even today this area has not been fully mapped or explored. The map of the basin of the River Plate is based on observations of the Jesuits.

Pedro Lozano was a professor at the Jesuit College in Cordova de Tucuman (Argentina).

First edition of an important Indian language grammar. Chibcha, known also as Muysca or Mosca, was once spoken by an Andean civilization living in the neighborhood of present-day Bogotá, Colombia. Before the Spanish conquest it was the principal tongue of an important center of American aboriginal culture. During the seventeenth century the use of the language declined rapidly, and by the middle of the eighteenth century it had disappeared almost entirely.

Though printed in Spain, the entire edition of this grammar was sent to the colonies for use in teaching and converting the Indians. Leaves 124-58 contain a Confessionario not mentioned on the title page. Father Lugo taught the Mosca language at the Convent of the Rosary in Santa Fé de Bogotá. The preliminary leaves include verses in his honor in that language.

The Catalogue of Books Printed in the XVth Century Now in the British Museum dates this pamphlet [12 January? 1493] and states that it “ ... appears to be the first edition printed at Pavia.”

The title has long fascinated some Americana bookmen because of the following passage, which begins on the recto of leaf [7] (in translation): “ ... the lands included in that circle of mountain and ocean almost making another world, looking towards Spain, whose breadth and length is so great, so ample and so immense that it excites more wonder than belief. A great many rivers flow through (these lands) not only navigable but gold bearing. ... ” If it could be proven that this passage refers to America, then this pamphlet would rank as the earliest printed work with an allusion to the New World. However, no concrete evidence exists to indicate that this is what the reference means, and unless some new and startling bibliographical and/or historical revelation occurs, it will likely remain among the question marks of Americana Vetustissima.

The Baron Horace de Landau copy.

The Mendel Collection also contains two other fifteenth-century editions of this work: Rome, Stephan Plannck, after 13 December 1492; and Rome, Andreas Fréitag, after 13 December 1492.

The title exhibited here is the only copy of this edition in the United States.

This small pamphlet is the earliest known publication of Peter Martyr, the first historian of the New World. It is the first published collection of voyages and contains the first account in printed form of the third voyage and a part of the second voyage of Columbus. This beautiful copy, another in John Carter Brown, and a copy lacking the title leaf in the Marciana Library in Venice are the only recorded surviving copies.

Peter Martyr, or to use his Italian name, Pietro Martire de’Anghiera, was born in Arona, Italy, about 1455. From 1487 until his death in 1526 he held various offices at the court of Spain. He possessed a sense of the epochal, for as early as 1494 he decided to write a history of “this great discovery,” meaning, of course, the maritime discoveries of Spain in the Western Ocean. His rank and official positions afforded him unusual opportunities. He was acquainted with Columbus, Cortés, Magellan, Cabot, and Vespucci. From them and lesser seamen and explorers he extracted information. Martyr had completed his narrative account of the first three voyages of Columbus before the summer of the year 1501 but, insofar as we are aware, had no immediate intention of publishing this First Decade of his history. The circumstances which led to an unauthorized publication of the Libretto center around Angelo Trevisan, secretary to the Venetian ambassador to Spain.

Trevisan had been directed to write accounts of Spanish discoveries for the Venetian annalist, Domenico Malipiero. He performed his task successfully and effortlessly, for from Martyr he received permission to copy his Latin manuscripts and to translate them into the Venetian dialect for dispatch to Malipiero. The latter presented the material to the Venetian Senate. The papers passed into the hands of the Venetian printer, Albertino Vercellese da Lisona, who printed the story in April, 1504. Trevisan’s sole contribution to the Libretto was the translation and a brief description of the personal appearance of Columbus found at the beginning of the narrative.

The provenance of this copy of the Libretto is faithfully and charmingly related by Douglas G. Parsonage:

On a certain visit to Budapest in 1929 Lathrop C. Harper called as usual on his old friend Gustav Ranschburg, antiquarian bookseller. Civilities were exchanged, companionable gossip started, and then the inevitable request from Harper: “Let’s see some books.” I was not there myself and cannot fill in the details as to what was shown and rejected, what else was looked at and set aside for further consideration. But I do know that at a certain point a nondescript, unimpressive volume in vellum lettered on the spine Opusc. Var. came to light. It was a volume containing twelve sixteenth-century pamphlets bound together with a manuscript index, with such unpromising titles as Conjectura de libris de imitatione Christi; Dissertatio de Tracala; De numismatis et nummis antiquis; and others.

Knowing Mr. Harper, I would like to imagine a certain bird-dog attitude that may suddenly have developed. On the other hand, his poker face when the stakes were high was notorious. But I only have his own version of what happened next, and that was a laconic: “I asked him the price, and said I’d take it.” One has to remember that all the titles were in Latin, of which Mr. Harper had little or no real knowledge; that the first nine pamphlets could have no possible interest for Harper or his customers; that the tenth was listed in the manuscript index as Navigazione alla scoperta d’America, Venezia 1504; and the last two were similar to the first nine. Yet I have Mr. Harper’s word, which I know to be true, that this is the title that caught his eye.

The book itself, under its proper title of Libretto De tutta La Nauigatione De Re De Spagna ... is the first printed collection of voyages, derived from Peter Martyr and covering the first three voyages of Columbus. In his voluminous reading Harper must somewhere have encountered the title and remembered it. No copy has ever appeared for sale, and it is so rare that few bibliographers have ever seen it or referred to it, except to mention its legendary rarity. And here was a second perfect copy, nestling anonymously in the middle of a dull collection of tracts in a utilitarian vellum binding lettered Opusc. Var.!

It came to America in Harper’s pocket; was separated and placed in a morocco case, and kept side-by-side with the parent volume in Harper’s safe until he died. To my knowledge he never offered it for sale, and indeed few people knew he had it. During the thirties times were bad, and few libraries or collectors had the kind of money Harper felt it was worth—and rightly! Came the forties and his slow withdrawal from active bookselling, partly due to advancing years and partly to family inheritance matters that occupied most of his time, and at his death in 1950 it was still in the safe.

With the sale of the business after Harper’s death, and the availability of a typed inventory of the books in his stock, some of the more knowledgeable dealers tried to buy the business for this one book. But only one of several collectors who saw the list was as alert as Harper had been to this outstanding rarity, which was typed out on a single line without any comment or price with the four or five thousand other books in the Harper stock. That this particular collector was the eventual successful purchaser of the business against considerable odds is evidence of the knowledge and acumen that went into forming his own library that now enriches the shelves of the Lilly Library at Indiana University. In his later role as Consultant in Latin Americana he has aided in bringing further substantial treasures and important collections to the same library. I refer of course to Bernardo Mendel.

Gift of Mr. Mendel on the occasion of the dedication.

See Plate XI, page 72.

First edition, first issue. It is almost impossible to indicate the importance of Peter Martyr in a few paragraphs. Scholar and historian, he was, fortunately for posterity, also a voluminous letter writer. Over a period of thirty- seven years, from 1488, when he first went to Spain from his native Italy, to the year preceding his death in 1525, he maintained an extensive correspondence with a wide circle of friends. The letters, in their original form, were not printed until the third decade of the sixteenth century, after his death; but prior to this, the information regarding the early voyages and discoveries appeared in print in the form of a series of “Decades” or groups of ten “books.”

The earliest unquestioned edition of the First Decade, except for the unauthorized versions in the Libretto and the Paesi, is the present, containing nine “books” and a portion of the tenth, together with Martyr’s account of his diplomatic mission to Egypt (the Legatio Babylonica), poems, and epigrams. Aside from the information in the text, the chief interest and importance of the book lies in the woodcut map of the newly discovered world, showing Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, Trinidad, and Bermuda—the latter here shown on a map for the first time. Practically all cartographers and scholars, to say nothing of bibliographers and booksellers, have discussed this map at length—its absence from at least three of the few surviving copies of the book leading to the supposition that it is not an integral part of the volume, but an insertion. It is more probable, however, that it was intended to accompany the book but that in the majority of cases it was removed (and in some instances the volume itself destroyed) in accordance with the Spanish king’s edict of the same year forbidding maps being made available to foreigners.

Translated from the original Latin into French, Italian, English, and German within the century, it is a curious fact that this title never appeared in Spanish.

To our knowledge no recent census of existing copies has been made. In 1907 the Church Catalogue located five copies, and when the present copy appeared at the Harmsworth sale in 1948 the cataloger noted: “No copy has been sold at auction [in England] during the last 60 years.”

The first complete edition of the eight Decades of Peter Martyr. The importance of this work for the early history of the New World is well known to students of the subject. The very rare edition shown here is the culmination of Martyr’s work—one of the absolutely indispensable sources for the discovery period.

Richard Eden translated and published the first English edition of the first three Decades in 1555 and the complete work in 1612, but it was not until 1892 that a complete Spanish edition was brought out, and only in 1907 was a full French translation published.

Gift of Mr. Mendel on the occasion of the dedication.

See Plate XII, page 73.

The first edition of Peter Martyr in French and the first collection of voyages (as opposed to travels overland) printed in that language. The volume contains a translation, somewhat abridged, of the first three Decades, and three “Narrations”: the first a translation of the Fourth Decade taken from the Basle, 1521 edition; and the second and third, translations of résumés of the Second and Third Letters of Cortés.

First printed account of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe. The story of this great event is a rather tragic one: Magellan was killed in a battle with the natives in the Philippines. Of the five ships manned by 265 men, only one with fewer than thirty-two men returned and finally landed at Seville on September 8, 1522.

This account was written as an exercise in Latin composition by Maximilian, natural son of the Archbishop of Salzburg and a young pupil of Peter Martyr. Martyr ordered his student to interview the returning sailors, who had gone to Valladolid to report to the Emperor, and to write out an account in Latin and forward it to his father in Germany.

The book was immediately reprinted in Paris (July, 1523) and in Rome (November, 1523, and in 1524). The Cologne edition is reproduced in facsimile in Henry Stevens’ Johann Schöner, London, 1888.

The two Rome editions, 1523 and 1524, printed by F. Minitii Calvi, are also exhibited. Sabin 47039 and 47040.

See Plate XIII, page 74.

First edition of an early Spanish work on navigation. The author, who is said to have served as an officer under Cortés, was entrusted by the King with the examination of pilots and sailing masters for the New World, taught navigation, and was held in high esteem as a nautical authority. His book was most popular with the successors of Columbus and was translated into French, Italian, Dutch, and English. The French translation went through five editions.

Of special interest is the full-page woodcut map of the world (leaf [d6]) on which Florida, Mexico, the Amazon, Peru, and the city of Los Reyes (Lima) are shown. This map represents the results of Spanish geographical discovery to 1545, as reported to Medina by the pilots with whom, in his official position as examiner, he was in constant touch. It shows the mouth of the Mississippi, the lands around the river and Gulf of St. Lawrence, mentioning among other names “Tra Labrada,” “Fra. Nueva,” and “Bacallaos” (New England). Newfoundland had not yet been established as an island. The River Saguenay is also shown, a remarkable feature in so early a map.

The Harmsworth copy.

Pomponius Mela, although of Spanish birth, ranks as the earliest Roman geographer. His brief Cosmographia remained a standard textbook in manuscript and printed form down to the sixteenth century. First published in 1471, it went through numerous editions which were gradually enlarged by accounts of the newest discoveries usually in the form of additions or brief commentaries. This edition was edited by Nuñez de la Yerva and contains in the preface a passage as follows (in translation): “In addition to those two furthest lands, many more have been found, for towards the West, Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain have discovered inhabited lands.”

This, then, is one of the earliest books referring to the New World. The woodcut map in this scarce Spanish incunabulum is the first world map to appear in a Spanish book.

Third French edition.

Mercator was one of the truly great figures in the science of geography. He began his mapmaking career with the publication of individual charts and maps in the late 1530’s. Later he conceived the idea of issuing a three-part compendium of his maps to embrace the entire known world. In 1585 the second part of his Atlas (a term he was the first to use with reference to a collection of maps) was issued. The first and third parts were published in 1595 and 1590, respectively. In 1602 the three parts were issued together as the first complete edition.

Sometime after 1600 the Mercator plates were acquired by Jodocus Hondius of Amsterdam. The present copy is an example of one of the many editions of Mercator that the Hondius family published in the seventeenth century.

A perfect copy of the first edition of the first Spanish-Mexican vocabulary to appear in print. The author was a Spanish Franciscan friar who spent a great many years in Mexico, devoting much of his life to disseminating the doctrines of Christianity among the Indians in their own language.

The woodcuts—religious representations—are extremely interesting and rank among the best ever used in an early Mexican imprint. (See Wroth, Book Arts in Early Mexico, Plates III and XI.)

This copy has a printed label pasted on the lower portion of the title page referring to an excise tax at “dos pesos y un tomin.”

First edition of Molina’s Mexican grammar, which was written as a supplement to his Vocabulario (see preceding title). This is the first printed grammar of the Mexican language. Molina, an ardent student, was acknowledged by his contemporaries as the leading authority on Mexican linguistics.

Ocharte was a Frenchman from Rouen who had married the daughter of Juan Pablos and had acquired the Pablos press. Henry R. Wagner doubted that Ocharte was a printer, though he was for a period in partnership with the printer Espinosa and the binder Pedro Balli.

See Plate XIV, page 75.

Antonio de Morga arrived in Manila from Mexico in June, 1595, and remained for some thirteen months. While there he became the first judge of the Real Audiencia and commanded several squadrons against the English and Dutch.

This history, written from original documents, is a book of eight chapters. The first seven narrate the discoveries, conquests, and other events in the Philippine Islands—including the Moluccas, China, and Japan—the final chapter is devoted to the people, government, and religion. It contains the account of Alvaro de Mendaña de Neira’s second voyage by his pilot Fernándes de Queiros. On this voyage the Marquesas Islands and the Island of Santa Cruz were discovered.

This is the first edition. Two issues of this first edition are known: the issue described above and another with an elaborately engraved title page by Samuel Estradamus containing a panorama of Luzon, Philipinas, and Sebu. The title page of the latter issue does not contain the name of the printer but reads: “Mexici ad Indos Anno 1609.” Insofar as we are aware, priority of issue has not been determined. The book was translated into English by Henry E. J. Stanley and published in London by the Hakluyt Society in 1868 with the title: The Philippine Islands, Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China at the close of the 16th century.

This copy contains the autograph signature of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora on the title page.

First edition of one of the most celebrated and most popular geographical and cartographical works of the sixteenth century. More than thirty editions were published up to 1628 in German, Latin, French, Italian, and Czech. Both Mercator and Ortelius, Münster’s younger contemporaries, used his maps as a source for their more elaborate publications.

The first edition is a very scarce book, and the late Harold L. Ruland, an authority on Münster, could locate only the copy in the New York Public Library in the United States (see his article in Imago Mundi, XVI [1962], 84 ff.).

The Mendel Collection also contains a copy of the 1578 edition, the last to be published by Petri.

This is a continuation of the Labor Evangelica by Francisco Colín, number 14. Murillo Velarde carried the history of the Philippine Islands and the Jesuit missions down to 1716.

The folding map in this copy is missing in almost all other known copies.

This title contains the musical notation and words for the four Passion narratives, a set of lamentations, and the prayer of Jeremiah. This is the first book containing music composed and printed in the New World. Earlier printed books containing music were reprints of well-known chants and masses from European works. The author, who was a Franciscan originally from Cádiz, secured the approval of both the Dominican and Augustinian vicars choral for the publication of this title in an effort to promote its use in all the religious settlements of New Spain.

In September, 1618, the Nodal brothers organized an expedition to explore the Le Maire passage south of Tierra del Fuego. Accompanying them were two Dutchmen who had sailed with Jacob Le Maire and Willem Corneliszoon Schouten on their voyage of circumnavigation in the years 1615 to 1617.

The diary of the expedition is contained in the sixty-five numbered leaves, with biographical sketches of the Nodals appearing on the last fifteen leaves. Sabin reported that the “map is almost always wanting ...” possibly due to the Spanish policy of not divulging too much information regarding new discoveries and explorations. This copy has a manuscript rubric at the end: “BGN,” the initials of Bartolomé García de Nodal.

First edition of a famous epic poem written in South America by the first native Chilean to achieve distinction in literature. Printed by the first printer on the South American continent.

This is a poetic account, both real and fancied, of the events of the conquest of Peru by the Spanish. Oña was born in the town of Valdivia and educated at the University of San Marcos in Lima. In his writing he displayed an obvious Spanish bias which detracts to an extent from the historical accuracy of his work, but the literary merit of the Aravco Domado has insured it a position among the most important examples of Spanish-American literature in the colonial period.

Printing was first introduced on the South American continent by Antonio Ricardo in Lima, or La Ciudad de los Reyes as it was first called. Ricardo had been an active printer in Mexico City before moving to Peru. The exact date of his arrival is not known, probably late in 1580 or early 1581, but his first known imprint bears the date 1584. Medina recorded only twelve sixteenth-century works from Lima bearing Ricardo’s name.

First edition of a great series of magnificent atlases compiled by Abraham Ortelius, published May 20, 1570, at Antwerp. Most of the copper plates for the maps were engraved by Franz Hogenberg. “The publication of this atlas marked an epoch in the history of cartography. It was the first uniformly sized, systematic collection of maps of the countries of the world based only on contemporary knowledge since the days of Ptolemy, and in that sense may be called the first modern atlas.” (R. V. Tooley, Maps and Map-Makers, 29)

Apart from the beautifully engraved, elaborately decorated, and brilliantly colored maps, the Ortelius atlas contains an extremely important “Catalogus Auctorum Tabularum Geographicarum” naming ninety-one map makers and their maps, from the earliest times up to Waldseemüller, Nicolaus de Cusa, and Mercator. This valuable bibliography has been carefully studied, supplemented, and annotated by L. Bagrow in his admirable A. Ortelii Catalogus Cartographorum, Gotha, 1928-30.

Ortelius was a scholar first and a geographer second. He believed that all literate persons should have a knowledge of geography. Judging by the number of editions of his atlases which were produced, the literate of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were well versed in the subject.

The following later editions from the Mendel Collection are exhibited:

1. The first edition in French. Antwerp, Diesth, 1572.
2. The first edition in German. Antwerp, Plantin, 1572 (with addition of 1573).
3. An enlarged edition containing 161 maps. Antwerp, Plantin, 1612.

First edition. The first and only part published at that time. The complete work was printed in the Biblioteca de los americanistas (Madrid, 1885), in two volumes, with an introduction by Cesareo Fernández Duro.

The author was born in Bogotá in 1674 but spent the greater part of his life in Venezuela. He died at Caracas, where his Historia was written. The narrative was based in part on material formerly in the archives of Caracas but not now extant, and it furnishes a valuable source for the early history of northern South America.

Whenever charges were made against the conduct of former viceroys or other officials after they had left office, it was the Spanish custom to hold a judicial review. The present “Pleyto,” or petition, was initiated by the famous Archbishop Palafox against the former Viceroy, Lope Díez de Armendáriz, Marqués de Cadereita, on the grounds that while in office he had made harmful and unjust charges that the Cabildo had incited “tumultuous behavior.”

Palafox, a member of a noble Spanish family, became a priest in 1629. His stormy career as “Friend of the Indians” began in 1639, when he was appointed Bishop of Puebla. He distinguished himself by his efforts to protect the natives from Spanish cruelty, expressly forbidding any methods of conversion other than persuasion. In this he met with the implacable hostility of the Jesuits. In 1647 he placed the Society under an interdict and laid a formal complaint against their activities in Rome. Finally the Jesuits succeeded in securing his recall in 1649, when he was returned to Spain and was made Bishop of Osma.

This work was unknown to Medina and has not been previously recorded. It is possibly the second imprint in Puebla.

These ninety-three pages contain an address by the famous and controversial Bishop of Puebla to the King of Spain defending and praising the character and abilities of the Mexican Indians: “The Indians are the vassals who have cost the Crown the least, yet they are not the ones who have helped least to enrich the Crown.” The work consists of twenty-one chapters relating to such topics as “On the courage and vigour of the Indians,” “On the poverty of the Indian,” “On the patience of the Indian,” “On the honesty of the Indian.”

This work is believed to have been secretly published and is without title (it is usually referred to as “Virtudes del Indio”), date, or imprint, though at the end it is signed (printed) “El Obispo de la Puebla de los Angeles.”

Pliny’s Natural History is much more than the title suggests, being a compendium or encyclopedia of all knowledge of the ancient world arranged in an orderly manner. It was the source of much medieval learning, both fact and fancy. This is especially true of the first six books, which contain an account of the universe and the earth which was of the greatest value and was long exploited by compilers of later times.

Printed for the first time in 1469, the present edition constitutes the first translation into a modern language.

A petition submitted to King Philip IV of Spain by Pedro Porter y Casanate requesting permission to undertake an expedition to California in an attempt to find the legendary Northwest Passage. Porter y Casanate was a distinguished Spanish hidalgo, who in later years achieved considerable success as a colonial administrator. He was governor of Sinaloa from 1647 to 1651, and then governor, captain-general, and president of the High Court in Chile.

The petition is a summary of existing information on California: its climate, natural resources, and Indian population, at the same time emphasizing the advantages for defense and trade with the Orient that Spain would derive from settlement of this area. The ever-present lure of gold and other riches is offered as an inducement to the King, in addition to the prospect of Spanish inactivity possibly resulting in French and English interest in California.

This copy, one in John Carter Brown, and another in the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid are the only copies recorded.

See Plate XV, page 76.

This edition of Ptolemy contains the second collection of maps produced from copper engravings. The text of this and the next title follows the translation of Jacobus Angelus. The maps were copied from a Greek manuscript of Ptolemy preserved at Vienna.

The engraving of the copper plates was begun about the year 1472 under the supervision of Conrad Sweynheym, the first printer of Rome, but they were not completed and published for some years after his death. Two plates were engraved for each map and were printed (with but one exception) on leaves of separate sheets placed face to face in pairs. The inscriptions on the maps were not engraved but were struck into the plates with steel punches and a mallet. The Bologna, 1477, edition of Ptolemy’s geography was the first to contain maps; however, most experts consider them to be far inferior to those in the present work.

The cosmographical works of Ptolemy, the second-century mathematician, astronomer, and geographer dominated the study of geography for almost 1,200 years until superseded by the more advanced works of Mercator and Ortelius. Contemporary knowledge of the known world in the latter part of the fifteenth and the first half of the sixteenth centuries is reflected in the numerous editions of Ptolemy, often with additional geographical information but, as we now know, containing numerous misconceptions. The geographical concepts of Ptolemy were a great influence in the determining of Columbus’ design for a westward oceanic voyage, including his miscalculation of the length of the degree and his subsequent drastic shortening of the distance from Europe west to Asia. No library devoted to the history of exploration and discovery can ignore the printed editions of Ptolemy. The Mendel Collection, as can be seen from this and the following titles, contains the most celebrated editions.

With the bookplate of the Duke of Sussex.

Gift of Mr. Mendel on the occasion of the dedication.

This is the first edition of Ptolemy printed in Germany, the first edition containing maps printed from woodcuts, and the first edition containing a map signed by the engraver. It is thought that Johann von Armheim was the artist responsible for the maps because the world map is signed “Johanne Schnitzer de Armssheim.”

The world map shows for the first time some changes in Ptolemy’s traditional conceptions. In the map of the north countries Greenland, not accurately placed, appears under the name of “Engronelant” and is the earliest printed representation of any part of the New World.

The maps in this edition were prepared sometime between 1464 and 1471 by the Benedictine monk Nicolaus Germanus, who dedicated the work to Pope Paul II. The type used is large roman with gothic features, modeled on the autograph manuscript of Germanus, which still survives. There are three variant states of the Ulm Ptolemy. This copy is distinguished by the following misprints on the recto of leaf 2: CLADII (for CLAUDII), COSMCGRAPHIA (for COSMOGRAPHIA), and OAPI (for CAPI). The bibliographical details and the priority of states have not been satisfactorily determined.

The autograph signature of Joannes Reger appears on the verso of leaf 133. Under somewhat questionable circumstances Reger acquired the printing business of Lienhart Holle and in 1486 brought out another edition of this title with the identical maps but with some changes in the text. Reger’s manuscript of the additional material incorporated in the 1486 edition is shown as the next item in this exhibit.

This is the manuscript of the additional matter compiled by Reger for his edition (Ulm, 1486) of Ptolemy’s Geographia. The first page of the manuscript, which deals with measures of length, does not appear in the printed edition.

Under the entry relating to the town of Chemmat, in the “Registrum Alphabeticum,” is a note that Johann Reger was born there and compiled this gazetteer at Ulm in 1486 at the age of thirty-two. This entry, together with the three extra “Tabula Modernae” at the end of the manuscript, appears in the printed edition of 1486 published by Reger. In the two succeeding editions of Ptolemy (Rome, 1490 and 1507) the “Registrum Alphabeticum” and the tract “De Locis” were reprinted, but the “Tabula” and the note on Chemmat were omitted.

Phillips refers to this title as a re-issue of the 1507 edition with a new title page and the addition of Johann Ruysch’s world map—the first printed map delineating any part of the New World based upon information derived from the post-Columbian voyages. This world map marks an epoch in the development of cartography. It is the first printed map to show the discoveries of the Portuguese along the coast of Africa, the first on which India is drawn as a triangular projection from the south coast of Asia, and the first map showing Greenland as an island and not connected to Europe.

This edition may be regarded as the opening chapter of the modern literature of atlases. It was edited by Jacobus Essler and Georgius Übelin, Strassburg lawyers. The volume contains forty-seven maps in all, including the famous map of the world, known as the “Admiral’s Map” (attributed by some to Columbus and by others to Vespucci), the first map actually printed in colors (the map of Lorraine in red, brown, and black), and the earliest map of Switzerland.

R. V. Tooley, Maps and Map-Makers, refers to this as “The most important edition of Ptolemy, containing the twenty-seven maps of the ancient world and twenty maps based on contemporary knowledge, under the superintendence of Martin Waldseemüller.” Of particular American interest is “Tabula Terre Nova,” one of the earliest printed maps specifically devoted to the delineation of the New World. A. E. Nordenskiöld, Facsimile-Atlas, does not accept Waldseemüller as the author of the twenty new maps in this edition.

An extremely interesting edition. This copy contains autograph notes by Henry Harrisse, the great bibliographer of early Americana. The note on the free portion of the front end sheet reads in part: “The first book of this Ptolemy is no longer Ringmann’s revised version of Giacomo d’Angiolo della Scarperia, but a new translation made by the celebrated reformer, scholar, musician, and statesman Wilibald Pirckheymer. The first 27 maps are those which were engraved by Agathus Dumon; that is, they are the maps supposed to have been drawn by the Alexandrian geographer, Agathodaemon, about 200 years before Christ, and so often reproduced in all the editions of Ptolemy ... . ” The woodcut of the Armillary sphere surrounded by the twelve winds (fol. 69 v.) was executed by the great sixteenth-century German engraver, Albrecht Dürer.

This was apparently a joint publishing venture of Grueninger in Strassburg and Johannes Koberger in Nuremberg.

First edition of Leonardo Cernotis’ Italian translation from the Latin version of 1596 by Giovanni Antonio Magini, the well-known cosmographer, who wrote a forty-one-page commentary and supplied this edition with indexes and descriptions of the modern maps.

This copy was most likely bound in Rome for Cardinal de’Medici. It bears his arms, the Cardinal’s hat with the six Medici balls, on the spine. Cardinal de’Medici was elected Pope Leo XI upon the death of Clement VIII but died shortly after his accession in 1605.

Known as “El Cedulario de Puga” because Vasco de Puga prepared it for publication, this is one of the earliest law books to be printed in America, preceded only by the collection of laws printed in Mexico in 1548. This volume contains laws and ordinances issued especially for the Spanish possessions in the New World. It is not only scarce but its importance can only be compared with the “Leyes ... " printed in Alcala in 1543, the first collection of laws pertaining to America, another rare book which has also recently been acquired by the Lilly Library. Whereas the 1543 volume contains the Nuevas Leyes promulgated in 1542 and 1543, this Mexican printed volume of 1563 is the first compilation of American laws including those of the earlier period of Spanish rule, covering the years 1525 through 1563.

One of the cedulas relates to the grant given by Charles V to Cortés in 1529, permitting him to start discoveries in the Pacific, an event which eventually led to the discovery of California. The text of this grant is printed on folio 36 v. Florida is mentioned several times as a province under the jurisdiction of New Spain. Many of the ordinances contain instructions concerned with the good treatment and conservation of the Indians.

This collection of the laws of New Spain was commissioned by Viceroy D. Luis de Velasco in 1560. The Oidor Maldonado started the work but died. Vasco de Puga, a Spanish magistrate who served as Oidor in Mexico 1555-64, 1566, completed the work for publication. A facsimile edition of this work was printed in Mexico City by J. M. Sandoval in 1878.

First edition of a collection of laws which contains many of the most important documents for the history of the discovery of the New World and many laws which determined the development of Spain and her possessions down to the present day. The “Pragmaticas” contains the first known printing of the decree authorizing judicial officials of the kingdom to gather criminals condemned to banishment from Spain for shipment to the island of Española (Haiti), where they were to serve under the command of Columbus. It also contains the laws expelling the Jews from the kingdom, those expelling the Moors, and the laws putting persons under the death penalty who had been condemned by the Inquisition and who dared re-enter the Spanish kingdoms.

This edition of the collection of the laws of Spain, compiled by Juan Ramírez, secretary to the Catholic Kings, is extremely rare. Only four copies are known: British Museum, James Ford Bell, Hispanic Society of America (imperfect), and the Mendel copy.

Exhibited with the Alcala edition is a Salamanca 1503 edition which is presumed to have been printed a few days later than the Alcala edition. It is in folio, 8 unnumbered, 248 numbered leaves, 1 unnumbered leaf. Above the title is an impressive woodcut of the arms of Spain. The British Museum assigned this edition to the press of Juan de Porras in Salamanca. Only four copies are known: Biblioteca Colombina, British Museum, John Carter Brown, and the Mendel copy.

This manuscript, an original and unpublished contemporary source for the history of South America, relates to the early history of the western part of Peru (now Bolivia) to the year 1639. It was written by order of King Philip IV of Spain to be used as source material for a projected history of the Spanish colonies in America, a monumental work which was never published.

By a royal decree of Philip IV, the Spanish officials in all parts of the Indies were required to submit detailed accounts of the areas under their jurisdiction for use in the compilation of this great work. Each narrative was to be entrusted to a qualified person who was to write of the history, geography, natural resources, and native customs, which was to be sent to Tomás Tamayo de Vargas, Chief Chronicler of the Indies, in Madrid.

The Archbishop of La Plata, Fray Francisco de Borja, entrusted the task of compiling the desired information for his city and region to Pedro Ramírez del Aguila, rector of the Metropolitan church of La Plata de Chuquisaca in the mining district of Upper Peru. Ramírez del Aguila had had long experience serving as a parish priest in the area, and he knew the details of the Indian culture and environment well. The result of his efforts to fulfill the King’s decree is represented in the manuscript exhibited here.

See Plate XVI, page 77.

Henri Christophe, the extraordinary Haitian Negro, who became king of the former French colony under the name of Henri I and was dramatically immortalized in Eugene O’Neill’s Emperor Jones, established a press at his palace which he called Sans Souci after the famous retreat of Frederick the Great. The ruins of the palace and castle which he built at a fabulous expenditure of human life are today the object of visits by tourists. He created an entire nobility modeled after the “old regime,” and also wished to create a center of Negro learning and culture, above all literature—although he could scarcely write his own name.

The author of this opera, the “Comte de Rosiers,” was presumably a member of the inner circle of his court; nothing is known about him with the exception of two other publications which are listed in Ralph T. Esterquest’s bibliography, “L’Imprìmerie Royale d’Hayti (1817-1819). A Little Known Royal Press of the Western Hemisphere.” (In The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, Vol. XXXIV, Second Quarter).

This title, possibly unique, was printed only a few months before the collapse of Henri’s kingdom and might well be the last literary product of this romantic Negro press.

This beautiful and very rare volume is one of the first books printed in France to contain references to the recently discovered New World. The references to the discovery are contained in the commentary of Pedro Cirvelo (ca. 1470-1550), famous Spanish mathematician and astrologer. On folio h² recto it is stated that King Ferdinand despatched sailors in 1491 [sic] to the west to discover new islands; returning after almost four months they reported that they had found many islands, offering as tangible evidence previously unknown species of birds, a quantity of gold, and strange men from those lands.

The book is also remarkable for its woodcut illustrations; the large sphere on the verso of the title was later used by the same printer for the Compostet Kalendrier des Bergères, 1499, one of the most beautiful woodcut books of the fifteenth century.

The Baron Horace de Landau copy.

Issued within seven years of the introduction of printing into Guatemala, this extraordinarily rare book is not only representative of the unusually handsome products of the first press but is important as an example of early secular literature, being the first poetical work written and printed in that country.

Medina could describe only the incomplete former Salvá-Heredia copy in his own library. In addition to the present, however, there are copies in the Library of Congress, John Carter Brown Library, and the Hispanic Society. See Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de la Poesia Hispano-Americana, for a discussion of the contents.

First edition of an authoritative account of the Dutch-Portuguese colonial war, which lasted until 1662 when Holland signed a treaty with Portugal, by which all territorial claims in Brazil were abandoned in exchange for a cash indemnity and certain commercial privileges.

Senhor Borba de Moraes reported as follows on this volume: “The Guerre del ... Brazil is one of the most sumptuous works published in the XVII century about a Brazilian subject. It was subsidized with 5 thousand ‘cruzados’ by D. Pedro II, and the most famous engravers of the time did the engraving ... The ‘Santa Teresa,’ as it is known among the bibliophiles, is difficult to find complete and in good condition. Taunay considers it ‘one of the most costly of the Brazilian seicentista pieces ... when in perfect condition, and with all the magnificent maps and engravings that adorn it.’ ” (Bibliographia Brasiliana, II, 231)

See Plate XVII, page 78.

The first and only imprint from the first press established in Oaxaca, Mexico. There is no other printed material extant issued from this press, and we have no knowledge of what happened to the printing equipment. Doña Francisca Flores died in 1725, making the Convent of St. Catherine her beneficiary. It was not until 1811 that another press was established in Oaxaca.

First edition. In Chapter XI, headed “De America qvarta orbis parte cum aliis nouis insulis appositis,” the nomenclature of the New World first suggested by Waldseemüller in his Cosmographiae Introductio is adopted, and the name “America siue Amerigen nouus mundus” is derived “ab eius inuẽtore Americo Vesputio viro sagacis ingenii: qui eam reperit Anno domini. 1497.” This work was compiled to accompany Schöner’s terrestrial globe of 1513.

With the bookplate of Andreas Perneder (1490-1543), famous Bavarian patrician and jurist.

This was the first major rare book acquired by Mr. Mendel for his library of Amencana.

See Plate XVIII, page 79.

This is one of the most important and influential books in the history of Spanish colonization of the New World.

In it, Sepúlveda advocates and defends the rights of the Pope and the kings of Spain to subdue by force and even to exterminate, if necessary, the Indian inhabitants of the New World. Appended to the work, as a supplement, is the famous Bull of Pope Alexander VI, granting exclusively to Spain the islands and continents Columbus had discovered.

The Apologia (for a discussion regarding this title and its relationship to Sepúlveda’s Democrates Secundus, which is unknown in any printed form, see Harrisse, B.A.V., 303, and Sabin 79176) was presented to the Council of the Indies for its approval, but that body refused to permit it to be published. The author appealed to the Emperor Charles V, who brought it to the attention of the Council of Castile. But there the great adversary of Sepúlveda, Bartolomé de las Casas, Bishop of Chiapas, “protector of the Indians,” used his great influence, “discovering and bringing to light the poison of which the work was full”— to use his own words. The manuscript was then submitted to the Universities of Alcala and Salamanca, where continued unfavorable reactions prevented it from being printed. Further, Las Casas engaged Sepúlveda in public debate on the theses advocated in the Apologia.

Though apparently defeated on all sides, Sepúlveda was a stubborn man and decided to circumvent the opposition by having the work printed in Rome. Whether it was officially suppressed there is not known, but it is one of the rarest books in the world: Harrisse, in 1866, knew of the text only from the Cologne and Madrid reprints and from a manuscript of fifteen leaves now in the John Carter Brown Library. By 1872 he had located the copy in the Biblioteca Casanatense in Rome, which remained the only known copy until the present one was discovered.

First edition of an important book relating to the early history of Venezuela and New Granada (Colombia) down to the year 1622. The manuscript of this work originally consisted of four parts. The first part only was published in the author’s lifetime. Of the remaining parts two are preserved in manuscript in the National Library at Bogotá and were printed in 1892. The fourth part is lost.

The first part is an account of the early explorations of this territory based upon material gathered by Father Simon on a journey through the region. He also relied heavily upon the Elegias of Juan de Castellanos and a manuscript of Francisco Vásquez. One of the most noteworthy sections in the volume is the narration of the events of the expedition of Pedro de Ursúa and Lope de Aguirre down the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers. It forms the sixth “noticia” of the work and was published in English by the Hakluyt Society in 1881.

The first edition of an important geographical work printed by the master printer of Venice, the Frenchman, Nicolas Jenson.

Solinus, who wrote during the third century A.D., was one of the most imaginative of the early writers on geographical subjects. So vivid was his imagination and so fantastic were his tales of strange and marvelous creatures that his work was considered an authority for more than a thousand years. He relied heavily on the more quixotic aspects of the writings of Pliny, Pomponius Mela, and other classical authors, in addition to embellishing his manuscripts with grotesque and fanciful illustrations of mythical men and beasts.

It was not until the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, when Europe entered the age of geographical expansion, that the worth of Solinus’ conjectures began to be questioned. Even then his writings exerted a considerable influence on cartographers and geographers, not to mention the bulk of the barely literate population, for some time after.

This is the first dated edition of Strabo. Written in the last decade of the first century B.C., this was the first attempt to compile a geographical encyclopedia which included mathematical, physical, political, and historical geography. Strabo’s importance, however, lies primarily not in any original contribution to scientific learning, but rather in the fact that his writings survived and were preserved for future scholars. Almost all the knowledge that we possess today regarding pre-Ptolemaic geographical conceptions is derived from Strabo’s Geographia.

The Spira brothers were the first printers in Venice. Johannes de Spira had obtained a five-year monopoly for printing in that city which expired on his death early in 1470. His brother Vindelinus succeeded to his press.

This and the following title of Vera Cruz are bound together, as are most copies. The two are the first philosophical works written and printed in the New World.

The eminent teacher and scholar Alonso de la Vera Cruz (1504-84) was an Augustinian friar, one of the most distinguished and accomplished members of his Order in the Spanish colonies. He was a graduate of the University of Salamanca, as well as a member of the faculty at the time he left Spain for the New World in 1535. He readily proved himself to be an outstanding teacher and administrator, and in 1553 he established the first chair of theology at the University of Mexico. Most of his published writings were the result of a lack of textbooks for his students, although they gained a reputation far wider than just his classroom.

The Recognitio summularum, an introduction to Aristotelian logic, was considered to be of sufficient importance to warrant at least three printings in Spain. The copy exhibited here was printed by the famous Juan Pablos on July 13, 1554.

The Dicilectica represents a continuation of the preceding Recognitio summularum. The elaborate woodcut compartment on the title page was copied from one made for the London printer Edward Whitchurch.

This title is dated October 7, 1554.

First edition of yet another outstanding work by Mexico’s first great scholar and teacher. This is a Catholic exposition of the marriage sacrament divided into three parts: marriage in general and its joys and trials, the question of divorce, and the conversion of the heathen. With respect to the latter, it is particularly valuable as a source for the study of the Indian marriage customs and the Spanish reaction to them.

Like his other works, it was later reprinted in Spain, accompanied by an appendix of “dubia”—doubts or controversial points which he felt needed further clarification.

First edition of the first work on natural science written and printed in the New World.

The Phisica was written to illuminate the Aristotelian theories and as such follows the format of the Greek philosopher’s writings on natural philosophy. However, Vera Cruz did not neglect his contemporaries and relied considerably upon such scholars as the Spanish astronomer Pedro Ciruelo, as well as his own observations on Mexico and the New World.

An appendix, the Sphera mundi of Johannes Campanus, a thirteenth-century mathematician, which is a practical compendium of astronomical knowledge, is added.

The title page, justifiably admired by bibliographers, is considered to be one of the finest examples of sixteenth- century woodcut composition in an American imprint.

First edition in Latin of the account of the Third Voyage of Vespucci written to Lorenzo Pier Francesco de Medici.

Since the day the venerable Bartolomé de las Casas challenged Amerigo Vespucci as being the first to discover the mainland of America, a controversy of some magnitude has centered on the man and his exploits. His detractors have maintained that the “pickle dealer of Seville” somehow contrived to rob Columbus of his rightful glory. His eulogists have defended him as a man of learning, modest, truthful, and circumspect in all that he wrote concerning his voyages.

Much of the controversy for many years revolved around two letters (only the printed versions are extant) that Vespucci was supposed to have written. The first in March or April, 1503, to Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de Medici described his Third Voyage, 14 May 1501-7 September 1502. The second letter was written in September, 1504, to Piero Soderini, gonfalonier of Florence. In this letter there is an account of four voyages by Vespucci between May, 1497, and June, 1504—the first two under the Spanish flag, the last two under the auspices of Portugal.

On this first voyage Vespucci sailed along and landed on the northern coast of South America. If this account is accepted as truthful, he was the first to have landed on this continent. Some historians label the two letters outright forgeries. Others maintain that the printed letters—deliberately provocative versions filled with misrepresentations and inaccuracies (to give them sales appeal)—were based on genuine letters of Vespucci modestly reporting his voyages.

It cannot be doubted that the two letters Mundus Novus were among the great literary successes of the sixteenth century and that they contributed greatly to the revolution then taking place in the geographical sciences.

Martin Waldseemüller, cartographer at St. Dié, published the account of the four voyages as part of his Cosmographia, a treatise to accompany his small globe and large world map of 1507. He was under the influence of Vespucci’s narrative and logically named the newly discovered land “the land of Americus, or America.” Waldseemüller later changed his mind about the name and substituted the term “Terra Incognita” in a map of 1513; but it was too late to bury the error, if, indeed, it was an error.

In addition to the first Latin edition of Mundus Novus, the following editions are exhibited:

1. Mundus Novus, Augsburg, J. Otmar, 1504. Sabin 99330.
2. De ora antarctica, Strassburg, Matthias Hupfuff, 1505. Sabin 99333.
3. Mundus Novus, Antwerp, Willem Vorsterman, 1505. Sabin 99336.

The Lilly Collection contains the Mundus Novus, Augsburg, 1504 (variant copy), and the Mundus Novus, Rome, 1504.

See Plate XIX, page 80.

An unpublished vocabulary of the Cakchiquel Indians, the dominant tribe of present-day Guatemala.

The author of this work is unknown, although there is a “rubrica” (autograph sign) on the last leaf. It was probably compiled by one of the Dominican or Franciscan missionaries in Guatemala. The text is in two columns, with the Spanish in black ink and the Indian equivalent in red.

Martin Waldseemüller was a priest, later a canon, who was brought to the monastery of Saint-Dié in Lorraine as illustrator, cartographer, and proofreader. A printing press had been established there by Vautrin Lud, a canon, in 1500 to publish works by the small group of humanists gathered in what the canons called a gymnasium.

Cosmographiae, a revision of Ptolemaic geography based on recent discoveries, represented a joint effort of the scholars of Saint-Dié. Matthias Ringmann, Jean Basin de Sandaucourt, and perhaps others translated Vespucci’s letter containing the account of the four voyages into Latin and wrote the introduction. Waldseemüller prepared a small globe and a new world map on a plane projection to accompany the volume. The small booklet consists of a prologue, an epilogue, and nine brief chapters followed by the Vespucci letter.

Three editions were printed on the little press at Saint-Dié. The first two are dated April 25, 1507. Two editions on the same day were necessary, perhaps, because of two different dedications. The one exhibited here is considered the third edition.

A marble plaque on the house of Nicholas Lud in Saint-Dié explains the importance of this book. The inscription reads: “Here, in the reign of René II, on April 25, 1507, the Cosmographiae Introductio was printed in which the name of AMERICA was given to the New World. It was printed and published by the members of the Gymnase Vosgien, Vautrin Lud, Nicholas Lud, Jean Basin, Matthias Ringmann, and Martin Waldseemüller.”

The text of the Saint-Dié edition was translated and reprinted extensively in Western Europe. Two later editions from the Mendel Collection are exhibited:

1. Cosmographie introductio, Strassburg, Johannes Grüninger, 1509. This copy from the library of the Baron Horace de Landau. Sabin 101022.
2. Cosmographiae introdvctio, Lyons, Jean de la Place [1517-18]. Sabin 101023.

See Plate XX, page 81.

This important pamphlet is a summary of contemporary astronomical and geographical knowledge. It contains a description of the known world, including a reference to the newly discovered lands in the west—a reference evidently based on Vespucci’s voyages along the coast of South America. The word “America” appears for the first time in a German language book on the verso of leaf twelve. The woodcut map of the Eastern Hemisphere on the title page, which is repeated three times in the text, depicts a small part of the New World in the lower corner marked “nüwe welt.”

The authorship of this extremely rare work never has been determined satisfactorily. The pamphlet has been attributed to Martin Waldseemüller on the strength of the references in the text to a large map and a globe. The reference to “America” has also promoted the identification with Waldseemüller, since it was he who first suggested the name in his Cosmographiae Introductio. The Strassburg physician Johannes Adelphus, referred to in the colophon as “castigatore” (corrector), also has been mentioned as the author. The writer of the biographical sketch of Adelphus in the Neue Deutsche Biographie (Berlin, 1953), I, 62, wrote as follows: “In the course of time he took up geographical, architectural and historical writing. ... In a ‘Beschreibung der Weltkugel’ [Strassburg, 1509] he addressed himself explicitly to the merchants.” Henry Harrisse also mentioned Adelphus as the possible author in The Discovery of North America (Paris and London, 1892), 466.

Johannes Gruniger published a Latin edition of this work under the title of Globus mundi in 1509. The priority of these editions has not been conclusively established despite the fact that the colophon of the Latin edition says “vltima Augusti” and the German refers to "ostern” (Easter).

Gift of Mr. Mendel on the occasion of the dedication.

See Plate XXI, page 82.

The second edition of the first Italian translation of the Verdadera relación de la conquista del Perú, the eye-witness account of the Inca Empire written in Peru in March, 1533, by Francisco de Xeres, Pizarro’s secretary. This important work, the conquistador’s official report of his spectacular accomplishment, had been published in Seville the year before and was translated into Italian by Domenico de Gaztelu, an Italian residing in Venice.

Of the original Spanish edition a single copy of the first issue is known in the New York Public Library; three copies of the second issue are recorded: the British Museum, the Huntington, and John Carter Brown Libraries. Only two other copies of the present Milan edition are recorded, one in the British Museum and another in John Carter Brown. The collation of this edition given by Harrisse and copied by Sabin is incorrect: all known copies have forty leaves.

This is the first edition of a narrative of a voyage and residence in the North Atlantic regions by the brothers Niccol` and Antonio Zeno presumed to have taken place sometime about 1380-94. The story in brief is as follows: The brothers were shipwrecked on the island of Frisland, somewhere south of Iceland. There they heard recitals from sailors of the lands of Drageo and Estotiland to the west which were incorporated in this account of their adventures. Needless to report, the narrative of the Zeno’s adventures was disputed at the time of publication and is still a source of controversy.

The most important feature of this title is the folding map at the back. Supposedly copied from a manuscript in the possession of the author, it delineates certain features of the northern Atlantic regions that cannot be traced on earlier charts that have survived. The map was reproduced in the Ptolemy of 1562, and the narrative was reprinted in Ramusio, 1574, Ortelius, 1575, Hakluyt, 1600, Purchas, 1625, North-West Fox, 1635, and others. The story remained dormant for about a hundred years until Forster and Buache in the late eighteenth century expressed their belief in its validity. The map was used by early English explorers in search of the Northwest Passage, and its errors in latitude are known to have deceived Frobisher.

The Hakluyt Society published an English translation in 1873. Ten years later Baron Nordenskiöld published his account of the Commentarii, in which he argued in favor of the validity of the narrative, while Frederick Lucas, in 1898, after an extensive study, concluded that it was a hoax, albeit an extremely ingenious and successful one.

The first part of the volume is devoted to the travels of Caterino Zeno, Ambassador from Venice to the Shah of Persia.