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Benzoni, Girolamo

ISOLE LA HISTORIA DEL MONDO NUOVO.LA QUAL TRATTA DELL, & MARI NUOVAMENTE RITROVATI, e DELLE NUOVE CITTÀ DA LUI PROPRIO Vedute, PER ACQUA & POR TERRA POR QUATTORDECI ANNI. Publicado por Venetia: Francesco Rampazetto, 1565. [4],175 leaves, including numerous in-text woodcuts. Woodcut titlepage portrait. Small octavo 19th-century Italian vellum, gilt spine label.Early ownership signature on front free endpaper. Titlepage repaired y along gutter, and with a few other small repairs. Some minor worming, occasionally repaired. Trimmed close, touching the running headlines in a few instances. Good edition .The first edition of this important early account of the New World, the first significant work based on firsthand observation by a non-Spaniard. Benzoni‘s history of the New World was one of the most widely disseminated texts of its day. Born in Milan, Benzoni spent fourteen years travelling through the Americas, beginning in 1541. He was familiar with the Antilles, Guatemala, and the west coast of South America, and gives a description of these regions, as well as a history from the arrival of Columbus to the conquest of Peru. Engaged in commerce, Benzoni quickly grew to hate the Spanish and their administration, and he treats them unfavorably in his text. He denounces the Spanish for their treatment of the Indians, and for their importation of slaves to America. The numerous woodcuts in the text depict Indians, their dwellings and activities, and a good portion of the text describes Indian life before it became too corrupted by European contact. Benzoni‘s work is also notable for containing an early account of the use of tobacco, and a few of the woodcuts show cocoa and banana trees, and other American plants and trees. "[The work] contains interesting details about the countries he visited, but abounds in errors and often in intentional misstatements. What Benzoni states about the Antilles is a clumsy rehash of Las Casas. His reports on the conquests of Mexico and Peru bristle with errors" - CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA. Despite his inaccuracies, the wide distribution of his book made Benzoni the single most influential figure in describing the New World to Europe in the mid-16th century. His work went through many printings, though Arents notes that "it appears never to have been permitted to circulate in Spain". Its final, and perhaps most influential, version was as parts IV-VI of De Bry‘s GRAND VOYAGES, where its anti - Spanish slant helped to advance the "Black Legend" of Spanish depravity in the New World. An important early first-hand account of the Americas, with some of the earliest illustrations based on actual observation, here in its first edition. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 565/2. SABIN 4790. MEDINA (BHA) I:418. BELL B197. STREIT II:789. ARENTS 10.BRITISH MUSEUM, ITALIAN BOOKS, p.85 Encadernação moderna e pequenos restauros, referência catálogo Sotheby‘s 11-2007 lote 6. Muito raro.