The Historia general del Peru deals with the discovery and conquest of Peru and the subsequent civil wars between the Pizarro and Almagro camps. This second edition is esteemed for its editor’s erudition. The work is printed in double-column format with a sufficiency of pleasing initials, and a title-page printed in black and red. The text first appeared as pt. II of the author’s Commentarios reales (Córdoba, 1617), but is a stand-alone work.

•  Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2408; Sabin 98755; Palau 354792; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 722/88. 20th-century half morocco over marbled paper–covered sides, spine with gilt-stamped title; sides and edges showing light rubbing. Title-page with small institutional stamp, lower outer corner repaired with loss of a few letters from publisher’s imprint; one other page stamped in lower outer corner. Lower portions of leaves stained, with some outer edges ragged, occasional edge nicks and lost corners. Last index leaf with upper portion torn away.

The frontispiece portrays a small but elegantly composed octagonal structure, labelled “Theatrum Cutlerianum.”

•  ESTC T34564; Foxon G21; Wing (rev.) G273 (first ed.). Recent marbled paper wrappers, front cover with printed paper label. Two pages (not including title-page) stamped; one page with two pencilled corrections. Margins untrimmed and occasionally showing a few spots or light staining, pages otherwise quite clean.

•  Foxon G73. Recent marbled paper wrappers; paper tape from an old library hinge reinforcement left in place. Frontispiece with small chip from bottom margin; title-page chipped along narrow old ink splotch at top and with slim adherence from old binder’s slip (as seen in our picture). Pencilled bracketing on several pages.

•  ESTC T22052.   Recent marbled paper–covered boards, front cover with gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages clean. (20790)

The most striking feature of this piece is the first of the two plates, a lifelike portrait of the book’s subject engraved by Heinrich Wehymer after Antonio Davide. The other plate, an unsigned etching, depicts the statue of Our Lady of Consolation in the Augustinian church at Genoa. Also present is an engraved title-page vignette depicting the arms of Pope Benedict XIII, the work’s dedicatee, and there are a few initials and woodcut head- and tailpieces, the tailpiece on the last page being especially large and handsome.

This is apparently the sole edition of this biography, and it is rare: A search of OCLC, RLIN, and NUC Pre-1956 revealed no copies, and the Italian Library Service union catalogue lists only one holding, at the Central Library in Turin.

•  Vellum over paste boards with staining on front cover; pastedowns torn along turn-ins and puter edge of front free endpaper somewhat tattered. Lightly foxed throughout, a few pages more heavily so, with a light waterstain on the bottom edge and/or lower outer corner of most leaves (barely visible, on some). Small hole in outer margin of half-title and hole with tear (from a paper defect) in the margin of pp. 51–52. The second plate with two closed tears into the engraving, without loss. All edges mottled red and blue.

The work was additionally printed in Dublin and Basil in the same year. OCLC notes that a third volume was printed almost ten years later, by J. Murray; that supplementary volume is not present here.

Signed binding: Contemporary treed calf, covers framed in gilt rolls, beautifully rebacked with gilt-stamped spines preserving handsome original gilt-stamped, two-color leather title and volume labels, turn-ins with gilt rolls. Front pastedown of vol. I with binder's ticket: “Pigge Binders, Lynn.”

A charming silhouette of Gibbon serves as frontispiece to volume I.

•  ESTC T79696; Allibone 663; Brunet, II, 1586; Norton, Gibbon, 131.   Bindings as above with original leather showing some scuffs and abrasions; gilt on original spine labels a little (but a little only) dimmed. Hinges (inside) reinforced. Final page of each volume, back pastedown of vol. I, and title-page of vol. II institutionally rubber-stamped; no other such marks. Intermittent spots of light foxing. A lovely, wide-margined, archetypically “18th-century” quarto production for this quintessentially 18th-century writer.  (23770)

Rare in the U.S.: We trace only the Getty copy of this edition, and earlier editions are no less rare.

•  Landwehr, German Emblem Books, 317. Boards covered in music-printed paper from an 18th-century antiphonal, spine with gilt-stamped leather title and author labels. Engraved title and pp. 49/50 (emblem VII) lacking. Title-page and next leaf with long-ago repaired holes, one on the latter affecting an initial on the verso; title-page with old inked device(?) and 19th-century institutional stamp on verso, showing through in part to recto; a small hole in a third leaf, taking perhaps a letter or two. Final blank leaf and two other leaves also stamped. One leaf torn from margins into text, repaired with Japanese tissue. Pages slightly age-toned, some with mild foxing or the odd spot. Faults noted, this is yet a worthwhile and studyable/enjoyable volume.

•  Evans 32197; Goldsmiths’-Kress 16911; ESTC W31888. Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label; worn and chipped at extremities, spine with inked call number. Front pastedown with old institutional bookplate, title-page and lower edges rubber-stamped. Contents leaf with tear from outer edge extending into text, now repaired; several leaves foxed and some lower corners crumpled. Pages age-toned, with inner portions of first and last few leaves (only) waterstained; pleasantly clean.

Click the image at right for an enlargement.

The text is mostly in Latin, with portions in Spanish; the printer has made use of nicely cut head- and tailpieces as well as a striking woodcut printer’s vignette (“De forti dulcedo”) on the red and black title-page. RLIN and OCLC show only two U.S. holdings of this edition.

Provenance: Front free endpaper with bookplate of Michael J. O’Farrell, the first Bishop of the Diocese of Trenton; also with bookplate noting O’Farrell’s gift of the book to an institution.

•  Palau 103253. Contemporary limp vellum, cockled and lightly soiled, with ties now lacking; spine with faded inked title. Title-page dusty, thin, and holed, with lower outside corner torn away, touching one letter and a red rule; date altered to 1601 by erasure of the first “C” in the roman-numeralled date! Leaves browned, foxed; instances of early inked marginalia and blots. Uncommon, as well as interesting for its contemporary use and its later provenance.

This document is one of the very few printed in the temporary capital of Mixco, a press having been salvaged from the ruins in the former capital. Thus, Mixco was the second city/town to have a press in Central America, and then, for only a short time—appoximately two years.

In addition to being important for its contents and in the realm of printing history, the González Bustillo report is uncommon: We trace only half a dozen copies in U.S. libraries.

•  Medina, Guatemala, 384; Palau 105113; Sabin 27811. Modern full calf, very plain style. Without the final leaf with one erratum on it.

Provenance: Vol. I title-page with inscription dated 1790, reading “Joseph Russells cost 10s a Vollume [sic]”; vol. IV inscribed by John Humphreys in 1794 and with small bookplate of Richard McIlvain.

•  ESTC T102429. Contemporary treed calf, spines with gilt-stamped leather title labels; board edges worn with leather cracking over spines, front cover and free endpaper of vol. IV detached. Bookplates of a now-defunct institution on front pastedowns. Some instances of offsetting and foxing, generally no more than moderate, with pages otherwise clean.