LA HISTORIA GENERAL DE LAS INDIAS

by Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalo Hernandez de:

Price: $18,500.00
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Seville: Juan Cromberger, 1535.. 197 leaves as follow: title-leaf, folios 1-7, folios +1-3, folios 8-193. 6 leaves are in excellent facsimile on old paper (title, ff. 10, 178. 185, 192, 193), 2 leaves have extensive facsimile work (ff. +2 and 191), and one leaf has minor facsimile work (ff. 1). Three other leaves have marginal repairs with minor loss (ff. 27, 183, 190). None of the woodcuts of New World subjects are affected by these facsimiles or repairs. An expertly restored copy in old vellum, leather label. Despite the work detailed above, a clean, solid, substantially intact copy of a very rare book. This famous work is the most extensive book on the New World written up to the time of publication, and is one of the chief sources to this day for many of the facts relating to the early history of the Spanish conquest of the New World. Oviedo was a witness to that history from the beginning, having seen, as a young page at the Spanish court, the return of Columbus in 1493. In 1505 he went out to the Indies himself as an official, and subsequently served in a number of important administrative posts. Over the next three decades he kept extensive notes on the history of the Spanish in the New World and all he observed there, especially natural history and the Indians he encountered. He also interviewed all of the Spanish explorers to whom he had access. In 1526 he published a short work on the natural history of the Indies, followed nine years later by the present work. His industry provides an extraordinary description of the period, one that his high offices and education gave him a unique ability to record. Oviedo's work is illustrated with numerous woodcuts, which are the earliest extant reliable pictures of things in the New World. These include a number of botanical subjects including prickly pear, as well as artifacts including the hammock, and natives, the most famous of which depicts an Indian panning for gold. The first edition of Oviedo's book publishes the first nineteen parts of his history. The twentieth part appeared as a part of Ramusio's VIAGGI... in 1551, and the remaining thirty were not published until 1851. This first edition is one of the outstanding early books on the New World, a foundation work regarding the period of the initial Spanish conquest. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 535/12. HARRISSE BAV 207. CHURCH 71. ARENTS, TOBACCO 4. MEDINA (BHA) 4. NISSEN ZOOLOGY 3032. JCB (3)I:118. CREATING AMERICA, YALE EXHIBITION 10. SERVIES, p.1.

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