Cieza de León, Pedro de:

$32,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

LA CHRONICA DEL PERU, NUEVAMENTE ESCRITA, POR PEDRO DE CIEÇA DE LEON, VEZINO DE SEVILLA. One of two 1554 Antwerp editions of Cieza de León's highly regarded history of Peru, and the earliest obtainable edition, following the first edition printed in Seville the previous year. The author, the foremost soldier-chronicler of the conquest, served under Pedro de La Gasca in his campaign against Gonzalo Pizarro during the civil war in Peru in the years following the conquest. "After the end of the civil war, he travelled extensively throughout Peru in order to collect information on both the conquest and the Inca world, with the clear intent of writing the first major history of Peru. When he returned to Spain in 1550, he managed to publish only the first part of his work...a thorough description of the land and people of Peru. It includes both the cities founded by the Spaniards, such as Lima and Quito, and the first documented descriptions of Inca cities and their customs. His wealth of information is the result of personal observation, the scrutiny of reports and official papers, and oral reports from Quechua Indians" - Delgado-Gomez.Considered the earliest history of the entire viceroyalty of Peru, LA CHRONICA... is illustrated with forty-one half-page woodcuts, several of which appear multiple times. In addition to numerous images of building activities, possibly derived from earlier works on European architecture and monuments, the illustrations include images of the devil, i

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