| Antonio de Herrera Y Tordesillas — Nieuwe Werelt, Anders ghenaempt West-Indien. - Eyghentlijcke Beschryvinghe van West-Indien. - Spieghel de Australische Navigatie |
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Nieuwe Werelt, Anders ghenaempt West-Indien. - Eyghentlijcke Beschryvinghe van West-Indien. - Spieghel de Australische Navigatie |
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Three parts in one volume. Folio (11 x 7 2/8 inches). Letterpress title-page in Dutch (fore-edge strengthened on verso) and additional engraved title-page in Latin to Herrera's work decorated with the Castilian arms, eight two vignettes of six Aztec gods and Mexican scenes, and including a cartouche at bottom with image of North and South America the FIRST MAP TO SHOW CALIFORNIA AS AN ISLAND, and14 fine numbered engraved maps of Central and South America; vignette title-pages to Cevallos's and Le Maire's accounts, and large folding map showing Le Maire's voyage across the Pacific to New Guinea, two double-page maps of Tierre del Fuego and New Guinea, and five views in the text (one or two marks, but a bright copy). Contemporary vellum over paste-board (a bit soiled, extremities lightly scuffed). Provenance: Near contemporary annotations on front past-down. First editions in Dutch: Herrera's "Nieuwe Werelt", was first published in Spanish in Madrid in 1601; first editions of Cevallos's "Eyghentlijcke Beschryvinghe van West-Indien", Amsterdam 1621 and Le Maire's "Spieghel der Australische Navigatie", Amsterdam 1622, together a collection of then available accounts of the New World. The last few pages give brief summaries of ten separate voyages through the Strait of Magellan: beginning with Magellan in 1520 and Olvier van Noort in 1598. Michel Colin issued simultaneous collected editions in Latin, French and Dutch in 1622. The heirs of Theodore de Bry reprinted Herrera's work in Frankfurt in 1623 as the twelfth part of their "Great Voyages", with reduced versions of the plates. Herrera was official historian to Kings Philip II, III, and IV, and his "Nieuwe Werelt" is essentially an introductory work to his magnum opus "Historia general de los hechos de los castellanos en las islas Terra Firme del mar oceano " which eventually covered eight decades of voyages and travels published in 1601-1615. Le Maire's discovery of and voyage around Cape Horn relieved the trading monopoly of the East India Company by finding an alternative route to the East Indies which did not violate the Company Charter which prevented other Dutch trading companies from using the existing routes of the Straits of Magellan and Cape Hope. Alden 622/29; Sabin 14348, 14352, 14353, 31542, 44059. Purchased at Sotheby's 23rd October 1986, lot 322. |
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