BENZONI, Girolamo. - Lot 273

BENZONI, Girolamo. Novae novi orbis historiae, id est, Rerum ab Hispanis in India Occidentali hactenus gestarum Libri tres. (Geneva), Eustache Vignon, 1578. In-8, (16) ff, 480 pp, (7) ff (including errata). Contemporary soft vellum (facsimile title page faded, small tear in margin p.223, many faint freckles, many old handwritten inscriptions in ink). Latin first edition, given by the Protestant Urbain Chauveton, and enlarged by a translation, also by Chauveton, of Nicolas Le Challeux's De Gallorum Expeditione in Floridam, on the massacre of French Lutheran colonists by the Spanish in Matanzas, Florida. An Italian traveler born in Milan, Girolamo Benzoni (ca 1519-ca 1570) abandoned his homeland at the age of 22 to set sail for the New World, where he spent fourteen years studying the new continent and its inhabitants. Returning to Italy in 1556, he set about compiling his notes, and in 1565 published his Historia del Mondo nuovo in Venice, a first-hand account of what he had seen there, interspersed with historical accounts borrowed from contemporary Spanish works. In his account, Benzoni paints an unflattering picture of the conquistadores. Banned in Spain, the work was an impressive success in Europe, as evidenced by editions in Italian, German, Dutch, French, English and Latin. Brunet I, 779-780. Duviols, pp. 178-184.