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Rare: We locate only the copy at the Bancroft Library.

•  Folded, as issued. A slim wormtrack in the foremargin, not touching any text; one pin-type wormhole in the text touching or costing one letter on each page. Clean, a nice copy.  (25814)

•  Sutro 902. Removed from a nonce volume.

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WorldCat locates only six U.S. libraries reporting ownership.

•  Medina, Mexico, 8139; Palau 317550.   Original plain wrappers, front one lacking. Light dust-soiling. Very good copy.  (28210)

Searches of OCLC, RLIN and NUC Pre-1956 locate only four copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 11808; Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 3654; Steele 46; Sutro 134. Removed from a volume with ragged inner margin. Faint rubber-stamp in one margin.

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Uncommon. We trace only three copies in the U.S.

•  Garritz 4724; Sutro, Supplement, 145. Not in Medina, Mexico.   Removed from a nonce volume. Very good condition.  (24785)

Only the second copy that we have had in our 35 years of dealing in Latin Americana.

First edition.

•  Medina, BHA, 5842; Palau 122212; DeBacker-Sommervogel, IV, 688–89.   Modern gray paper over boards with caramel-color leather author and title label on front cover. Title-page with some areas of loss, not approaching lettering; mounted. Small wormholes in margins, seldom touching text and taking at most a letter or two; pages roughened at tops by the very minor nibblings of a very small rodent. Lower margins of pp. 39–40, 77–80 irregular with loss of some of the bottom notes. Else a nice copy.  (28414)

The LEC illustrations consist of 8 full-page and 41 in-text color drawings by Everett Gee Jackson (no relation to the author), who also signed the colophon. Saul Marks designed the book, selecting a monotype Bembo font with the chapter titles printed in red ink, and the printing was done by Saul and Lillian Marks at The Plantin Press, Los Angeles.

Binding:  In an attractive full woven fabric derived from a striated Native American design, with a colorful paper spine label.

This is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed; the appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 298.   Binding as above in original slipcase, volume spine label slightly darkened, slipcase showing only minimal wear and with a spot or two of darkening to front panel. A very nice copy.  (30117)

WorldCat locates only three copies in the U.S., and we know of one other.

•  Sutro 827.   Sewn in original printed wrappers, front one with (remarkably neat) dust-soiling and one corner-tip repaired. Light waterstain in upper corner of some leaves.  (7756)

The volume also has literary and printing history interest: Among the prefatory matter is a sonnet by Bernabe Perez de Turcios, and Maria de Benevides was one of the colonial New World's notable printers, and she produced this with wide margins, some nice typography and initials, and a good woodcut of the Order's emblem.

Provenance:  Marca de fuego of the Jesuit Colegio de San Pedro y San Pablo of Mexico City on the upper edges; ownership-stamp of the Universidad Nacional y Pontificia on folio 1.

Searches of NUC Pre-1956 and WorldCat locate only two copies in U.S. libraries, and searches of the Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico and the OPAC of the Spanish National Library find no copies in Spain. We do find a copy at the National Library of Mexico.

•  Medina, Mexico, 1446; Beristain, II, 153; Palau 134128.   Mid-19th-century quarter brown leather with mottled paper sides and elegant foliate tooling to the spine; all edges speckled blue. Waterstain in lower outside corner of the margins of four leaves in the prefatory matter; a small amount of other spotting/foxing intermittently. A rather nice copy of an uncommon and important work.  (29631)

The final 264 pages offer a life of St. Igantius Loyola.

Neither WorldCat nor NUC Pre-1956 locates any copies in U.S. libraries, but we know of an unreported copy at the John Carter Brown Library; WorldCat finds one copy in Chile and one in Mexico. The Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico and the OPAC of the BNE find no copies.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3905 (incorrect collation, not noting the first 268 pp.); DeBacker-Sommervogel, IV, 1950.   Contemporary vellum, inked “label” with title to upper spine in brown/black and a charming red-inked shelfmark at bottom. Light waterstaining/soil to lower outer corners at rear, with a bit of other foxing/soiling elsewhere; headers touched by binder's knife in one small section. A very good copy.  (29539)

The number of books published in Zapotec during the Mexican colonial era is much, much smaller than the number published in Nahuatl or even Otomi.

•  Viñaza 362; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 125; Medina, Puebla, 956; Palau 137035; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2281; Sabin 40732 (“Very rare”).   Contemporary limp vellum, remnants of ties. One small pin-type wormhole through the text from front to rear. A very nice copy.  (27508)

•  Palau 141001; Sabin 14210.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties, front joint (inside) starting to open. Scattered foxing, including on title-page; short tear, repaired, in title; some staining in early margins and into text; without the preliminaries or the added engraved title. Doodling in many margins; ink stains from a careless quill user on several pages. John Carter Brown's stamped signature on p. 1. A less than perfect copy that yet does not “feel” maimed; a copy with a distinguished provenance to match the distinction of the work.  (27561)

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.

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In this Italian translation from the pen of Agostino di Cravaliz, 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. The title-page is printed in roman and italic and has the woodcut printer's device.

•  Alden & Landis 564/25; Sabin 27741; Medina, BHA, 159n; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 2v.   18th-century vellum over paste boards, soiled and a bit rubbed; red leather spine label, with a chip, and an old circular paper shelf-label. Title-page dust-soiled, mounted; small, narrow, oblong portion of blank area of title-page excised and filled in at an early time. Lacks folio 1 and final blank. Top margins closely trimmed, sometimes costing the running heads and folio numbers.  (25767)

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)

Franciscan artist and engraver Matías de Irala provided thecopper-engraved frontispiece portrait here. In addition to the life, the volume also contains López's works Tratado del Apocalypsi (first published 1676) and Tesoro de Medicina (first published 1672), the latter a compendium of indigenous Mexican herbal remedies and Latin-American medicinal folklore. This, the stated fourth edition (in actuality the sixth, according to Medina), appears to be the only such to combine the three works.

•  Guerra, Materia medica mexicana, 194 (1672 ed.); Medina, BHA, 2619; Palau 142530; Sabin 42578; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 727/152.   Contemporary vellum, spine with early inked title; vellum a bit darkened, spine wrinkled with small nick, ties partially intact. Text block mostly separated from spine; sewing loosening in final signature. One lower outer corner torn away. Light smudges and small areas of waterstaining almost entirely confined to margins, touching some headers; a few pencilled marginalia; pages otherwise clean.  (29099)