Martyr, Peter

Libro prima della Historia

de lIndie Occidentali (Martir)

Libro secondo delle Indie Occidentali (Oviedo)

Libro ultimo del Summario delle Indie Occidentali

Martyr, Peter and Ramusio, Giovani (¿)            

Libro prima della Historia

de lIndie Occidentali (Martir)

Libro secondo delle Indie Occidentali (Oviedo)

Libro ultimo del Summario delle Indie Occidentali

(lettere delle Peru)

Venice, 1534

Harrisse 190; Church 69

In small quarto, 20x15 cm;

Rebound in 19th century red Morocco; raised bands; title labels in gilt.

Martyr: 1 nn leaf, title; 2-79 lvs ; 1 original blank, folded map in printed facsimile on contemporary paper

Oviedo: 1 nn leaf, title; 2 lvs, prologue; lvs 4-64, the text; 2 lvs, register & text: explanation of the 1534 Ramusio map. 1 text woodcut, 3 full page woodcuts

Anonymous:: 1 nn leaf, title page; 15 nn lvs: text, early letter describing conquest of Peru.

The first book of this Sammelband, whos Sammler was probably Ramusio is a summary of Peter Martyrs Decades that appeared for the first time complete in its 8 decades in 1530.

Between the first and the second book you will find the woodcut printed map of Hispanola, Isola Spagnuola, in facsimile. The map is missing in most copies.

The second book is a faithful copy of the first edition of Oviedos Historia natural de las Indias Occidentales, Toledo 1526. That first edition is practically unobtainable. The simple drawings printed as woodcuts in the original edition have been copied here, enlarged and supplied with details of plants and persons. These are all very early images out of the New World.

You will find the woodcuts at: Folio 21 v. Hamaca; Folio 48 v. Arbol gigante; Folio 49 r. Prender fuego; Folio 52 v. Hoja del platano.

The last leaf of the Oviedo text is a curious colophon, giving the date of printing (December 1534 in Venice), claiming a 20 years copy right for a map of all the West Indies, that is supposed to be added to the book. However, of this famous map, tutto questo mondo nuovo... (Burden 10), only two copies are known to survive, one in the New York Public Library and another, contemporary colored one in the John Carter Brown Library.

The third and last book of this Sammelband of Americana is one of the earliest printed reports on the conquest of Peru by Francisco Pizarro. The author of this report came to Spain with or WAS Hernando Pizarro himself, Franciscos brother. His ship arrived in Sevilla in January 1534 with loads of presents in gold for the Emperor.

Earliest letters mentioning the fall of Peru to Pizarro

It would appear that the oldest surviving printed version of this letter is the German New Zeitung aus Hispanien and Italien of February 1534; the second an imprint in Spanish of the same by Bartolome Perez in Sevilla in April of that same year; a third added to the second edition of Bordones Isolario in June 1534, and ours be the fourth in October 1534. In between the same Bartolome Perez printed Pizarros secretarys Francisco de Xeres report under the title of the Verdadera relacion de a Conquista del Peru en Julio 1534.