Beschreibung
Small 4°, disbound in a folding case of antique quarter calf over marbled boards, flat spine with crimson morocco lettering-piece, gilt letter. Woodcut initials. In good to very good condition. (2 ll.), 52 pp. *** ORIGINAL EDITION of one of the narratives that later comprised the História trágico-marítima; extremely rare. As with all of these Portuguese shipwreck accounts from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century, it was later produced in a counterfeit eighteenth-century edition. Boxer noted, "I have never seen a copy of this first edition and have taken the description from the História da literatura portuguesa ilustrada, III, 214" ("An Introduction to the História trágico-marítima," in Miscelânea de estudos em honra do Prof. Hernani Cidade, p. 86, no. 17A). In some corrections and clarifications to his previous article, Boxer refers to a copy in the Torre do Tombo, gives the collation (which agrees with ours) and calls it "excessively rare" (Quaderni portoghesi V [Pisa 1979], 107). Innocêncio and Figanière also knew only of the Torre do Tombo copy. The Visconde de Azevedo, mistaking the counterfeit edition for the original, reprinted the former on his private press in a limited edition of four copies at Porto in 1865.The Portuguese vessels Sacramento and Nossa Senhora de Atalaya set sail from Goa together in February 1647. Neither was in good repair, and both were wrecked off the coast of Natal, 30 June and 4 July 1647. Each ship's survivors were unaware of the other's misfortune until the company from the Sacramento discovered the wreckage of Nossa Senhora de Atalaya. They finally caught up with their countrymen and together continued the arduous overland march toward Moçambique. Of 72 persons who reached shore after the wreck of the Sacramento, only five Portuguese and four slaves lived through the rigors of the journey. Authorities in Sofala held the survivors incommunicado for a month while investigating the whereabouts of jewels salvaged from both ships.News of the loss of the ships took a long time to reach Lisbon: the first notice was apparently received in August 1649. Further details were supplied by Bento Teixeira Feo (or Feio, or Feyo), a treasury official in India who later served as thesoureiro-môr in Lisbon. He had been aboard Nossa Senhora de Atalaya, and after being interviewed by the Overseas Councilors began to write this report of the shipwreck at the King's command. Teixeira Feo's moving narrative gives details of the shipwrecks and the dangers the survivors underwent as they made their way north. It is rich in description of the terrain, animals, vegetation, and the indigenous population, which makes it not only an affecting piece of literature, but a crucial source for the ethno-history of Southeast Africa.*** Boxer, "An Introduction to the História Trágico-Marítima," in Miscelânea de Estudos em honra do Prof. Hernâni Cidade p. 86, no. 17A. Arouca F47. Innocêncio I, 354. Barbosa Machado I, 502. Forjaz de Sampaio, História da literatura portuguesa ilustrada III, 214. Goldsmith, Short Title Catalogue of Spanish and Portuguese Books 1601-1700 in the Library of the British Museum S18 (citing a copy lacking the title page and following preliminary leaf). Figanière, Bibliographia historica portugueza 1056. See also Duffy, Shipwreck and Empire pp. 42-3, 78, 79, 80, 85, 125, 126, 129, 142, 149, 150, 152-3, 156, 157, 158, 160, 161, 180n.; and Bell, Portuguese Literature pp. 217-8. Cf. Mindlin, Highlights 598, for the counterfeit edition, describing it erroneously as the original. For a further discussion of the differences between this 1650 edition and its eighteenth-century counterfeit, see Maria Teresa Payan Martins, Livros clandestinos e contrafacções em Portugal no século XVIII, pp. 234-9; a footnote on p. 234 states "Desta edição só temos conhecimento da existência de um exemplar, que faz parte do acervo bibliográfico do A.N.T.T.". Not in JCB, Portuguese and Brazilian Books. Not located in Porba. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 36572
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