The Grandeza was Balbuena's first published work, appearing from the Ocharte press in Mexico in 1604. A descriptive epic poem about Mexico City at the close of the 16th century, paying homage to its external material aspects and to its spiritual, political, and social ones as well, it is a major work of Novohispanic literature. The Siglo de Oro was the author's second published work; it first appeared in Madrid in 1608 and is composed of a series of 12 eclogues.

Binding:  Contemporary acid-stained sheep (Valencia style) in hues of green and brown, covers with a gilt roll border and a center device of the Spanish royal coat of arms, spine gilt extra.

•  Palau 22339; Simón Díaz 2286; Maggs, Spanish Books, 71a. On Balbuena, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal e Iberoamérica, fiche 90, frames 7–16.   Bound as above, joints and extremities mildly rubbed. Title-page with spots of pinhole worming, front fly-leaf with one such. Pages clean, portrait handsome.  (38393)

In this work of canon law and Catholic Church customs and practices, Baquero studies the privilege that the Bull of the Holy Crusade granted the Spanish nation regarding oratories in private residences; it applied not only to Spain but to colonies as well.

The first of three, this edition was published by “un amigo del author.” The other editions appeared in 1781 AND 1861.

Only one U.S. library reports ownership of either the 1777 or 1781 edition. It should be noted that there is NO 1771 edition, despite Palau and online cataloguing; cataloguers have simply failed to look at the last page of the supposed 1771 edition to see that the colophon is dated 1777.

This offers one very pretty large initial and some modestly nice work with type ornaments.

•  Palau 23499 (giving wrong date of publication).   Contemporary limp vellum, a bit missing from back cover; evidence of ties, and binding with light dust-soiling. Lacking rear free endpaper. A clean, nice copy.  (29596)

Signed by the crown with a wooden stamp, “Yo el Rey.”

This copy sent to Santiago, Chile, and docketed there.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Clean and untattered.  (25817)

The letters have all the characteristics to be expected of copies retained in a bound volume maintained by Benjamin Hall Wright.

•  Zanetti & Garcia, Sugar & Railroads: A Cuban History, pp. 18–33.   All documents overall in excellent condition with only some age-toning; all leaves loose. Letters with evidence, as above, of having been in a sewn volume.  (40980)

The vast bulk of this work attempts to convince the English to support the Scots' enterprise and cites political, religious, social, and economic reasons for doing so; clearly, the Scots knew that English naval might in particular would be essential for the success of the scheme. Beyond this, however, a section (pp. 42 to 51) addresses the natural history, native population, agricultural commodities, and indigenous industry of the region; and the work ends with an account of the Scots' settlement, the buildings erected there, and its intercourse with the indigenous people.

Authorship of this work is problematic: It is signed “Philo-Caledon” at the end of the dedication and three other names have have been proposed as possible authors in addition to Foyer's — George Ridpath, Andrew Fletcher, and John Hamilton (2nd Baron Belhaven). Added to the conundrum of authorship, the work was produced in four editions in the same year, each having different numbers of pages, each with a different signature scheme, none with a publisher, and this one without even a place of publication!

•  Wing (rev. ed.) F2047; Sabin 78211; Alden & Landis 699/9; ESTC R18505 ; and Halkett & Laing II:32.   20th-century half dark brown crushed morocco with brown linen sides. This copy has all the hallmarks of having once been through a British bookseller's “hospital”: all leaves are dust-soiled or age-toned; all leaves are uncut but some have been extended and others not, and some leaves with torn margins (but not all) have had lost paper restored; all such repairs and extensions are within the first six leaves, meaning these were probably supplied from another copy. Top of title-leaf trimmed with loss of “A” of the title; another leaf with a tear to the top margin with loss costing tops of several letters of words on one page, and two leaves with the running head guillotined by a binder; some stray stains. An interesting copy for its probable if problematic history and condition.  (34130)

A good example of the solid, workaday English law-printing of its period, opening with an attractive foliate initial crowned with a seated griffin.

•  ESTC N57352. Removed from a nonce volume. Pages clean save for some very minor browning in outer margins.  (4935)

Public works and land use are traditionally fraught with concern and intransigence on the part of the various parties involved, and in the Cuban case at hand, this was certainly so; the Junta had appointed a four-member committee “para meditar los arbitrios que conceptuasen mas oportunos y menos gravosos para la formacin de caminos” (“to decide the tax rates that will be least burdensome but still will bring about the most timely creation of [good] roads”). Jáuregui's opinion was clearly and concisely expressed and shows a progressive tax structure differentiating users of the roads and the wear each category was most likely to create.

Handsomely printed on extremely good quality paper.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, CCPB, and the OPACs of the national libraries of Mexico and Spain locate only three copies: two in the U.S. and one in Chile. One of the U.S. copies is incomplete. How many copies may be in Cuban libraries is unknown.

•  Sabin 35823; Trelles, Bibliografía cubana de los siglos XVII y XVIII (2nd ed.), 166; Medina, Habana, 130.   A fine copy in original plain wrappers. Housed in a quarter dark red morocco clamshell case.  (34735)

      Some of both the voyages and the maps make their first published appearances here—among them the New England map depicting the Maryland and Virginia coastlines, engraved by R. Michault after one contained in Richard Blome’s Description of the Island of Jamaica, part of which work appears here translated into French. Altogether, a volume notable both for its strong African and North American content and for the aesthetic appeal of its plates and pleasingly ornamented typography.

Sabin 36944; Alden & Landis 674/159; Beinecke Lesser Antilles Collection 68; Baer, 17th-Century Maryland, 78. Recent 17th-century style mottled calf with covers framed in a gilt roll and double-panelled in gilt fillets with gilt-stamped corner fleurons,; spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels and gilt-stamped decorative devices. Several pages (not including title) and the versos of a few plates stamped by a now-defunct institution. Paper slightly embrittled. Light waterstaining to a number of leaves and plates, mostly in margins; the first map with two repairs. One leaf (blank?) prior to Colonies Angloises excised; lacking the folding map of the Nile. A good copy, in a handsome binding of recent vintage and contemporaneous style.  (8746)

The work is handsomely printed (although erratic in its pagination and signature markings), in double-column format, featuring title-pages in black and red with an engaging small engraved vignette of a ship between pillars reading “Plus” and “Ultra.”

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of Carlos Sanz in several places.

•  Sabin 40053; Palau 135738; Alden & Landis 737/135; Medina, BHA, 3071; Borba de Moraes, II, 150; LeClerc 872.   Contemporary vellum over pasteboards, a little soiled especially to spnes, retaining button and loop closures; hinges (inside) open in a few places but bindings strong. Occasional waterstain or other sign of exposure to dampness; a few gutter margins (only) of first volume with a short wormtrack; some cockling of paper.  (34810)

The Historia general de las Indias (first published in 1552) is divided into two parts which stand on their own although clearly written as two parts of a whole. Part I is a history of events concerning the discovery and conquests of the New World exclusive of those involving Cortés. Part II is entirely dedicated to the telling of Cortés's role in the conquest of Mexico and subsequent discoveries.

In this Italian translation from the pen of Agostino di Cravaliz (first published with title Historia di Mexico, et quando si discoperse la nuoua Hispagna [Roma: appresso Valerio & Luigi Dirici fratelli, M.D.L.V]), López's “all-Cortés” volume stands as part III of the three-volume Historia, delle nuove Indie Occidentali, with parts I and II being translations of Cieza de Leon's Historia, over Cronica del gran regno del Peru and the previously mentioned part I of Gómara's Historia general de las Indias.

The text here is printed in italic type except the capitals, which are roman. Leaves 292–96 containa brief study of Nahuatl and include lists of numbers, months, days, and years in that language.

Binding:  American signed binding by Coombs of Providence, R.I., for John Carter Brown (ca. 1865), with his binder's ticket. Full red morocco, round spine, raised bands; author, title, place and date of publication in gilt on spine; gilt roll on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt. Gilt supra-libros of John Carter Brown on front cover.

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on first leaf of preliminaries, supra-libros as above. On his death to his son John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900). On his death deeded to the John Carter Brown Library. Deaccessioned 2008.

•  Alden & Landis 560/28; Sabin 27739; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 2t; Medina, BHA, 159n. This edition not in H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, but see 1692.   Binding as above. Lacks the title-leaf; (therefore) first leaf of preliminaries with a John Carter Brown's personal ownership stamp and his bookplate on front pastedown. Waterstaining, barely visible in many margins and lightly across text in last half. Four leaves with very old scribbling (pen trials?) in margins. A treasure with a distinguished provenance, presenting itself in the classic fashion of a 19th-century “collector's copy.”  (28914)

This volume, curiously, does not sport any of the expectable types of title-page that were common by its time. Instead, it simply reads: Andreae / Mocenici / P.V.D. / Bellvm / Came / racense. This bare title-page is printed in roman type, while all else is printed in a very bright, crisp italic. Several woodcut criblé initials are used in text.

Provenance:  Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 8534 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882); later part of the Theological Institute of Connecticut Library.

Evidence of Readership: Several notes and marked passages, in ink.

•  Not in Harrisse, Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 525/11; Adams M1518.   18th-century mottled English calf, raised bands and modest gilt tooling, all edges speckled red; hinges (inside) partially open with spine pulled at top and some leather lost at cover corners; holding. Marked as above, some bug-spotting on title-page; two pinhole wormholes in binding extending into lower margins of early signatures; limited waterstaining, typically marginal, and a few other pages with stains or soilings. Ex-library as above: paper shelving label on spine, inking and pencilling on endpapers, embossed institutional stamps on six leaves. A good and serviceable copy with a happy provenance.  (36660)

•  Goldsmiths'-Kress 7982 (different printing, same year); Sabin 56843; ESTC N13696; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 743/171.   Removed from a nonce volume. Very good.  (39076)

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on title-page; later in the John Carter Brown Library (bookplate); note at end “Collated with G.G. Church copy. July 31, 1912. dup.” Deaccessioned 2008.

Evidence of readership: Scattered marginalia in French through p. 50, almost invariably giving the French for obscure words and phrases in Spanish in the text. Perhaps owned by someone living in the Haitian area of the island?

•  Palau 296409; Medina, BHA, 5154; Sabin 76309.   Contemporary vellum over paste boards, vellum split at fore-edge of front one exposing the substrate; vellum cockled and old, faint inked writing on it. Front hinge (inside) open; without the map; stamp as noted above. A good copy.  (28324)

•  Very Good condition, in recent wrappers.  (7771)