Relation Herrn Petri Fernandes de Quir, Spanischen Hauptmans [et]c. So er König. May. in Spanien [et]c. : Von dem new erfundnem vierten theil der Welt (so bissher in Mappis oder Landtafflen Terra Aust

A$95,000 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Augspurg [i.e. Augsburg] : bey Chrysostomo Dabertzhofer, 1611. Small quarto, recent marbled papered wrappers, all edges blue; pp. [2], 9, [1], title-leaf with woodcut printer s device, engraved headpiece with Jesuit trigram, historiated initial; a fine copy, housed in a custom blind-tooled morocco clamshell box. Rare first German edition of the Eighth Memorial of the explorer Fernández de Quirós, in which he describes his discovery of what he presumed to be the southern continent, or Terra Australis Incognita. Of over 50 memorials thought to have been written by Quirós and addressed to King Philip III of Spain, petitioning for royal support to mount a new expedition to establish a Spanish colony in the lands that he, along with Mendaña and Torres, had discovered in the South Seas, this is one of fourteen known to have been printed. Quirós describes his discovery of Terra Australis Incognita, the fifth part of the known world, which he had named Australia del Espiritu Santo. In fact, Quirós had not discovered a southern continent, but part of the New Hebrides archipelago. The memorials penned by Quirós were circulated exclusively among the King and his Council ministers. The majority were manuscripts, but between 1607 and 1614 Quirós published fourteen memorials at his own expense, which were presented at the Council of the Indies. In 1610, on learning that some of these memorials had been distributed beyond their intended circle, the King ordered the recall of all copies of t

• Binding: Hardcover

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