Americæ pars quinta. Nobilis & admiratione plena Hieronymi Bezoni Mediolanensis Hia: secundæ sectionis Hispanorum, tum in Nigrittas seruos suos, tum in Indos crudelitatem, Gallorumq piratarū de Hispanis toties reporata spolia; Aduentū item Hispanorū in Novam Indiæ continentis Hispaniam, eorumq, contra incolas eius regionis sæuitiam explicans. Addita ad singula sere Capira scholia, in quibus res Indiæ luculenter exponuntur. Accessit præterea Tabula Chorographica Novæ Hispaniæ in India Occidentali.
Frankfurt: Theodor De Bry, 1595 [but 1617]. Second edition.
Folio in 4s (14" x 9 1/2"): a–h4 i6 A–F4, 2 binder’s blanks [$3 signed; f3 signed “f2”]. 62 leaves, pp. [2] (title, blank) 1–72 [4] (2pp. blank, title, blank) foll. 1–22 [2] (2pp. blank). With two engraved title-pages, a folding map, a portrait of Christopher Columbus, and 22 half-page engraved plates.
Bound by W. Pratt in full crused green morocco with gilt superlibros to the boards. On the spine, 5 raised bands. Author, series, part, edition, and language gilt to the second panel. City and date gilt to the third. All edges of the text-block gilt. Excellent margins.
Spine sunned and skinned. Front joint a little weak. Flyleaf split along the gutter. Splits to the margins of the map. Report from Henry Stevens dated 1925 tipped in at the front.As noted in Stevens’s report, leaves – and – are not original to 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 example is the fifth installment in the Grands Voyages series, detailing the colonization of Central America. De Bry did not reserve his feelings when the work was titled, as it aptly describes “the cruelty of the Spaniards toward both their Black slaves and the Indians, as well as the spoils frequently won from the Spaniards by French pirates; it also describes the arrival of the Spaniards in New Spain (on the American mainland) and their savagery against the inhabitants of that region.” The plates are equally visceral, with the conquistador’s vial treatment of native populations being a central theme. The account is based on Benzoni's 15 years on the isthmus of America, in Panama and Nicaragua; his “History of the World” had begun in Pars IV (published 1594) and concluded with Pars VI (published 1596). The volumes are credited with circulating the Black Legend of Spain, as De Bry’s volumes were drafted under heavy protestant influence during the multitude of religious wars throughout Western Europe. Scholars has sparred over the “Legend” for centuries, but a resounding note in debates is that while negative opinions of Spain have genuine historical foundations, the propaganda campaign was coordination in form to convey the idea that the brutality of the Spanish was inherent to their "Spaniard-ness." More recent history sadly elucidates that many are capable of this unique kind of cruelty.
Church 156.
Cataloged by G.R. Murdock
Item #GRM0108
Price: $5,100