July Catalogue Review

I hasten to add that these items represent only a small part of what is offered. Australia and the Pacific is of course the core of this material. Now here are some unusual items.

Martyr, Peter, d’Anghiera. De Rebus Oceanicis et novo orbe, decades tre...et item de rebus Aethiopicis, Indiicis, Lusitanicis...Damiani a Goes...

Thick small octavo; small title-page repair, minor scattered foxing, but a good copy in old vellum, spine neatly repaired; bookplate on front pastedown. Cologne. G. Calenius & heirs of J. Quentel, 1574

The earliest history of the discovery and conquest of the New World.

Martyr’s De Rebus Oceanicis contains the first account of Balboa’s sighting of the Pacific Ocean, as well as the earliest account of Cabot’s discoveries along the northeast coast of America (Decade III, Book 6).

Peter Martyr (1457-1526) was the foremost chronicler of the New World in its earliest period, and the first writer to preach the importance of the discovery of America by his countryman Columbus. An Italian scholar, from 1487 living in Spain, he was for several years tutor to the children of Ferdinand and Isabella, and a friend and contemporary of Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, Magellan, Vasco da Gama, and Cortes. Through personal correspondence with the navigators, and from examination of documents to which he had access as an official of the Council for the Indies, Martyr was able to record the major events surrounding the discovery of the New World.

The first edition of the first decade of De Rebus Oceanicis was published in 1511. Two more decades were added in the Alcala edition of 1516. The first complete edition of all eight decades, recording events up to 1526, was published in Alcala in 1530. The work was translated into English in 1555, and used by Hakluyt, who himself produced an edition of the complete book (De orbe novo...decades octo) in Paris in 1587.

The present edition contains the first three decades, covering the years 1492 to 1516, together with the De insulis nuper inventis, relating Cortes’s expedition to Mexico, and the three books of the De Babylonica legatione, describing Martyr’s diplomatic mission to Egypt in 1501-1502. Also included are miscellaneous writings by Portuguese historian and statesman Damiao de Goes, among them a description of Lapland and an account of the religion and customs of the Ethiopians. A$9,400

Rare Book Monthly

July Catalogue Review

Rare Book Monthly

Archived Reviews

July Catalogue Review

Rare Book Monthly

Review Search

Archived Reviews