FIRST ITALIAN EDITION
ACOSTA, José de Historia Naturale, e Morale Delle Indie; Scritta Dal R.P... Della Compagnia del Giesu; Nella quale si trattano le cose notabili del Cielo, & de gli Elementi, Metalli, Piante, & Animali di quelle: i fuoiriti, & ceremonie: Leggi, & gouerni, & guerre degli Indiani... Venice Bernardo Basa 1596
4to. [21 x 15.3 cm], (24), 173 ff. Bound in 17th/18th -century mottled calf, spine with raised bands and floral stamps, minor worming and loss to foot of spine, covers rubbed. Engraved bookplate of Horticultural Society of New York on front pastedown and embossed stamp on f.[S3], ownership inscriptions on title (scored) and rear fly-leaf. Light soiling on initial leaves, but otherwise very good.
First Italian edition of Acosta’s most important book (Spanish editio princeps Seville, 1590). This Venetian edition, printed in Aldine characters, made accessible to Italians the Historia natural y moral de las Indias, a “work which operated more strongly than any other in opening the eyes of the rest of Europe to the great wealth that Spain was drawing from America” (Streeter I.32; 1604 English edition). Divided into seven books on geography, metallurgy, natural history, and the laws, customs and history of the American Indians, the Historia natural y moral is one of the earliest balanced eyewitness accounts devoted to the New World. “It provides firsthand observations on such diverse phenomena as altitude sickness, the nature and uses of coca, and the crops, farm techniques, and domesticated animals of America. Equally important are his descriptions of Inca and Aztec history, religion, folk customs, and statecraft. He was the first to describe in detail Mexican ideograms and the Inca postal system” (DSB I.48). The Historia natural y moral was used as a basic source for the physical geography of America for over 200 years, by Humboldt among others. It is also important for the history of metallurgy in describing for the first time the method of treating silver mines with quicksilver in order to extract larger quantities. A Jesuit missionary in Mexico and Peru from 1570 to 1584, Acosta (1540-1600) anticipated Buffon in attributing different degrees of heat and cold in the Old and New Worlds to the agency of the winds. The work is also a key biographical source for the lives of both Cortes and Pizarro.
* Leclerc 15; Chadenat 3906; Sabin 124.
$US2850
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