Beschreibung:

De nuper sub D. Carolo repertis insulis, simulatque incolarum moribus…Enchiridion.
Basel: [Adam Petri], 1521. Small 4to (196 x 146 mm). 43 pp., a-e4, +ii final leaves. Title-page within woodcut border, 2 woodcut initials, printed catchwords. Modern vellum backed boards, covered with early printed papers. Condition : pp. 20 and 21 misnumbered, margins shaved, minor dampstains at edges; paper split near vellum, covers slightly bowed. Provenance : contemporary ms. marginalia. Acquisition : purchased from Asher Rare Books (2002), $12,975 first edition of this seminal americanum: the first authoritative account of hernando cortés’ expedition to mexico, beginning the spanish conquest of the new world. Peter Martyr's 1521 Basel letter from his Decades , documenting the lands and inhabitants of what would become New Spain, and describing the preliminary explorations of the Mexican coast by Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba and Juan de Grijalva. The present text serves as a substitution for the First Cortés Letter to Charles V, lost to history shortly after its composition at Vera Cruz on July 10, 1519. “Whether it was actually lost or suppressed by the Council for the Indies, at the request of Narvaez, is unknown…As this Letter is mentioned by Cortés in his Second Letter and by other contemporary writers, there can be no doubt of its having been written… A publication by Peter Martyr, entitled DE NUPER SUB D. CAROLO REPERTIS INSULIS…is usually substituted for it.” (Church 47) The tract gives a fuller account of Cuba than the earlier Decades , and addresses the first and second embassies of Montezuma; the founding of Vera Cruz; the Aztec calendar; human sacrifices; and Mayan hieroglyphics. As a member of the Council for the Indies and friend of the most renowned explorers of the time, Martyr had direct access to first hand accounts of the New World by Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Cortés, Magellan, Cabot, and Vespucci, earning him the title of America’s first historian. An absolute rarity, with no record at auction for at least fifty years. H.P. Kraus included a copy, the Mendel-Lilly library copy, in cat. 185, 1990 (but 1998), item 28, $17,500 European Americana 521.1; Borba de Moraes, p.530; Church 47; JCB I, 79; JCB German Americana 521/1; Harrisse 110; Medina BHA, 62; Palau 12594; Sabin 1553; Streeter Sale 8; Stevens Nuggets 1802.