Der ander Theil, der Newlich erfundenen Landtschafft Americæ, Von dreyen Schiffahrten, so die Franzosen in Floridam (die gegen Nidergang gelegen) gethan. Eine vnter dem Hauptmañ H. Laudonniere, Anno 1564. Die ander vnter H. Ribald 1565. Die dritte, vnter H. Guerguesio 1567. geschehen. Mit Beschreibung und lebendiger Contrafactur, dieser Prouinze, Gestalt, Sitten vnd Gebräuch der Wilden, Durch Jacob Le Moyne, sonst Morges genannt, der alles selbst gesehen, vnd deßhalben fürnemlich in diese Landtschafft verschickt worden. Auß dem Französischen in Latein beschrieben, durch C. C. A. Vnd jetzt auf dem Latein in Teutsch bracht, durch den Ehrwirdigen H. Oseam Halen. . .
...Auch mit schönen vnd Kunstreichen Kupfferstücken, vnd deren angehenckten Erklärung, jezunder zum andern mal an Tag gegeben, durch Dieterich de Bry, Bürger in Franckfort am Mayn, Anno 1603. Frankfurt: Johann Wechel for Theodor de Bry, 1591 [1603]. Second edition in German.
Folio in 4s (9 5/16” x 13 ¼”, 237mm x 339mm): A–F4 2A–N4 2O6 (O6 blank) [$3 signed; –A1, 2A1; +O4]. 82 leaves, pp. [6] (title, blank, 2pp. dedication to Prince Wilhelm of Palatine, 2pp. to the reader) 1–2 3–42 (general history of Florida), [4] (section title (dated 1603), blank, 2pp. contents) [84] (42 half-page engravings titled and captioned in letterpress, numbered I–XLII, each blank verso) [28] (6pp. letter to King Charles IX of France, 9pp. description of Captain Gourgues’s 1567 voyage, 10pp. parergon, index, 2pp. blank). With an engraved title page, an engraved folding map, and 44 engraved half-page plates integral with the text (of which 1 is the armorial achievement of Georg Wilhelm Count Palatine of the Rhine, 1 the dedication of the Ark, and 42 depictions of Indigenous Americans).
Bound in XXc paneled green morocco. On the spine, 5 raised bands. Author, title (“FLORIDA”), editor and city of publication gilt to brown morocco in the second panel. Date gilt to tail.
Boards lightly scuffed. Tanned, at times heavily, at the letterpress throughout. Tear to the lower edge of A3, not affecting the text. Paper fault to B1 (touching two characters) and to F2 (not affecting the text).
Theodor de Bry (Theodorus or Dirk, 1528–1598) was born in Liège to a distinguished Protestant (Calvinist) family of goldsmith-engravers; through the marriage of his daughter Maria Magdalena to Matthew Merian (father to Maria Sibylla Merian by his second wife), the family would continue to be engraver-publishers into the XVIIIc. The persecution of Protestants in 1570 resulting in de Bry’s exile from deeply Catholic Liège and a peregrination through the Netherlands and England. In London he met Richard Hakluyt, the apostle of American exploration and colonization, as well as Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues (ca. 1533–1588), and began to formulate a major project publishing accounts of voyages. Once settled in Frankfurt, de Bry — from the age of 60 — began two parallel series, now known as the Grands Voyages (Great Voyages, i.e., those to the Americas, in 14 parts) and the Petits Voyages (Little Voyages, i.e., those to Asia, in 12 parts), which were completed after his death by his wife Catherine and his sons Johann Theodor and Johann Israel. Each part of the series was a stand-alone work, and while runs or complete series are sometimes found, likely the parts were mostly bought piece-meal.
The present volume is the second part of the American series and contains de Bry’s translation of Le Moyne’s “brief narration of those things that befell the French in Florida, a province of America” during the disastrous expedition led by René Goulaine de Laudonnière in 1564 (see our first edition of the Latin translation). De Bry excitedly offered a teaser of this work in his forward to the English edition of Hariot’s A briefe and true report of the new found land of Virginia: “I have in hand the Historye of Florida wich should bee first sett foorthe because yt was discouvered by the Frenchemen longe befor the discoverye of Virginia, yet I hope shortylye also to publish the same, A Victorye, doubtless so Rare, as I thinke the like hath not ben heard nor seene."
Le Moyne was — in this capacity — the first European artist to travel to the Americas and to record what he saw (including by botanical watercolors handled by Arader). Accounts of the earlier Ribaut expedition (1562) and the later expedition of de Gourgues (1567) are also included, but their authors are not named. The illustrations — for which de Bry’s voyages are perhaps so ardently sought — are after Le Moyne’s watercolors, which de Bry traveled to London to buy from his widow (although recent research suggests this may not be the case, and that the images are instead after John White, whose work appeared in the first part of the series, Hariot’s Virginia). They depict native Americans — particularly the Timucua, a group that perished in the early XVIIIc — in a variety of situations and activities, from the ordinary (cooking fish) to the preposterous (cooking humans). Although assessments of their veracity have fluctuated over the centuries, their early date and thoroughness have made them the most enduring records of contact-era native Americans. The map is the first French map of the Americas to show Florida and extends west into the Gulf of Mexico and up the Carolina coast. John Matthews Baxter in his 1941 “Annotated Checklist of Florida Maps” (Tequesta I, pp. 107-115) calls it “the most remarkable and important map, which has been preserved from sixteenth century maps, of that part of the East Coast which lies between Cape Hatteras and Cape Florida…”
This example was lot 161 of Swann Auction Galleries “Maps and Atlases, Natural History and Color Plate Books” sale on 10 December 2024.
Alden & Landis 603/63; Sabin 8784.II; VD-16 B 262.
Catalogued by G.R. Murdock.
Item #GRM0016
Price: $24,000