LA CHRONICA DEL PERU, NUEVAMENTE ESCRITA, POR PEDRO DE CIEÇA DE LEON, VEZINO DE SEVILLA

Cieza de León, Pedro de

Verlag: Martin Nucio, Antwerp, 1554

[8],204 leaves, with forty-one woodcuts in the text. Woodcut vignette on titlepage. 12mo. Contemporary limp vellum, lacking ties. Vellum attached to text block with ties through foredges of pastedowns only. Slight age toning, occasional dampstaining, minor soiling on leaf 55. A very good copy. In a half morocco and cloth box. One of two 1554 Antwerp editions of Cieza de León's highly regarded history of Peru, and the earliest obtainable edition, following the first edition printed in Seville the previous year. The author, the foremost soldier-chronicler of the conquest, served under Pedro de La Gasca in his campaign against Gonzalo Pizarro during the civil war in Peru in the years following the conquest. "After the end of the civil war, he travelled extensively throughout Peru in order to collect information on both the conquest and the Inca world, with the clear intent of writing the first major history of Peru. When he returned to Spain in 1550, he managed to publish only the first part of his work.a thorough description of the land and people of Peru. It includes both the cities founded by the Spaniards, such as Lima and Quito, and the first documented descriptions of Inca cities and their customs. His wealth of information is the result of personal observation, the scrutiny of reports and official papers, and oral reports from Quechua Indians" - Delgado-Gomez. Considered the earliest history of the entire viceroyalty of Peru, LA CHRONICA. is illustrated with forty-one half-page woodcuts, several of which appear multiple times. In addition to numerous images of building activities, possibly derived from earlier works on European architecture and monuments, the illustrations include images of the devil, indigenous animals, the former Inca capital of Cuzco, Lake Titicaca, and Potosí. "A European vision of America sometimes enhanced by fantastic elements. In one of them, the devil, believed to be hard at work in the New World, is shown as he keeps the inhabitants from leading a virtuous Christian life, and in another, Lake Titicaca, located on the desolate Andean altiplano, looks curiously like a canal in the city of Venice. The illustration of the Cerro de Potosí, the fabled 'silver mountain' of the Indies is an exception. Because it was based on an original drawing done by the chronicler himself, it more accurately depicts the real place" - Johnson. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 554/15. SABIN 13045. MEDINA, BHA 161. FIELD 314 (1553 ed). JOHNSON, THE BOOK IN THE AMERICAS 32 (1553 ed). DELGADO-GOMEZ, SPANISH HISTORICAL WRITING ABOUT THE NEW WORLD 26 (1553 ed). Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers WRCAM38224

Bibliografische Details

Titel: LA CHRONICA DEL PERU, NUEVAMENTE ESCRITA, ...
Verlag: Martin Nucio, Antwerp
Erscheinungsdatum: 1554