July Catalogue Review

Adams, M755; Alden, ‘European Americana”, 574/1; Borba de Moraes, II, p. 31; JCB, I, 253; Medina (BHA), 235; Palau, 12595; Parker, pp. 208-9, Sabin, 1558

If you decide to plunge in this direction you need not be concerned about seeing too many books. Your window is 1493 to 1625 or Columbus to Purchas His Pilgrimes. You won’t need much shelf space, just patience and money. This is extraordinary material.

Oveido Y Valdes, Fernandez de. Historia General y natural de las Indias, Islas y Tierra-Firme del Mar Oceano..

Four volumes, folio, with a total of 15 plates (three folding, one coloured); a fine set in contemporary polished marbled calf, double labels. Madrid, real Academia, 1851-1855.

First full edition of the great sixteenth-century work on Spanish voyages: a beautiful copy in a handsome contemporary binding.

Oviedo’s ‘massive work...if published when it was written, might have given its author the literary stature of Barros...As Oviedo’s work stands, it is a notable monument; in fact it is the greatest classic of the early years of Spanish activity in the New World to be chronicled by a contemporary...’ (Penrose).

‘The Spanish historian Oviedo was born at Madrid in August 1478. Educated at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, in his thirteenth year he became page to their son, the Infante Don John, was present at the siege of Granada, and there saw Columbus previous to his voyage to America. On the death of Prince John (4 October 1497), Oviedo went to Italy, and there acted as secretary to Gonzolo Fernandez de Cordoba. In 1514 he was appointed supervisor of gold-smeltings at San Domingo, and on his return to Spain in 1523 was appointed historiographer of the Indies. He paid five more visits to America before his death, which took place at Valladolid in 1557.

‘Besides a romance of chivalry entitled Claribalte (1519) Oviedo wrote two extensive works of permanent value: La General y natural historia de las Indias and Las Quinquagenas de la nobleza de Espana. The former work was first issued at Toledo (1526) in the form of a summary entitled La Natural hystoria de las Indias; the first part of La Historia general de las Indias appeared in Seville in 1535; but the complete work was not published until 1851-1855, when it was edited by J. A. de los Rios for the Spanish Academy of History. Though written in a diffuse style, it embodies a mass of curious information collected at first hand, and the incomplete Seville edition was widely read in the English and French versions published by Eden and Poleur respectively in 1555 and 1556...’ (Encyclopedia Britannica). $11,000

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