[Americana]. HERRERA (Antonio de). Histoire générale des voy - Lot 57

[Americana]. HERRERA (Antonio de). Histoire générale des voyages et conquestes des Castillans, dans les Isles & Terre-Ferme des Indes Occidentales. Paris, chez Nicolas & Jean de La Coste, 1660 (vols 1 et 2) and chez la veuve N. de LA Coste, François Clouzier et Pierre Auboüin, 1671 (vol 3). 3 volumes in-4, bound in 18th-century full glazed speckled calf, ornate ribbed spines, red morocco title-pieces, inner gilt roulette and on the edges, marbled edges (binding slightly rubbed at the hinges, with the beginning of a split in vol.3, a few ff. a little foxed, tiny wormhole in lower margin from f. Dddd2). First French edition, translated by Nicolas de La Coste. Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas, the first historiographer of the Indies for the Spanish kings, brings together in this precious work on the history of the discovery and conquest of Spanish America, a number of documents previously unavailable to other historians, and provides valuable information on Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Cortes and Magellan. Published separately, it is rare to find the three volumes of this unfinished translation together (Nicolas de La Coste died before completing it), with the third volume published posthumously by his widow eleven years after the first two. Provenance: Carnarvon (with his armorial bookplate engraved with the motto Ung je serviray). This could be the famous Egyptologist George Edward Stanhope Molyneux Herbert, 5th Earl of Carnarvon (1866-1923). (Chadenat I, 83).