LAS CASAS, Cristobal de.

by Cristobal de Las Casas

£1,000 · Offered by Sokol Books

A very scarce Venetian edition of this important Italian-Spanish dictionary, with fascinating expunctions by an early prudish owner. The work of the obscure Sevillian lexicographer Crist‚àö‚â•bal de las Casas (d.1576), it was originally published in 1570 the first such bilingual dictionary, praised in the preface by the famous author Fernando de Herrera. It was the first dictionary worthy of this name by which the Spanish language was compared to any other Romance language, excluding the polyglot dictionary of Ambrosio Calepino (J.M. Lope Blanch). Las Casas probably learnt Tuscan during a stay in Italy, and his dictionary filled a major gap in the book market, the last Spanish (to Latin) dictionary having been published by Nebrija in 1495. Las Casas provided a way for Spanish-speaking readers to appreciate the wealth of the Tuscan language and literature, and to make it easier for Italians to learn Spanish, for diplomacy, trade, etc. The two parts, Tuscan-Castilian (15,000 lemmas) and Castilian-Tuscan (10,000 lemmas), were reliant on Calepino and Nebrija, but also featured numerous terms which had never been previously listed in a dictionary: e.g., desenquedernar / squadernare, that is, to have a book disbound and broken up into its constituent gatherings or sheets; salcizzo / salchichon (sausage); Berlingozzo / tortilla de huevos (a kind of flatbread); and turbante / turbante tocado turco (Turkish turban). The contemporary (most likely Italian) annotator of this copy careful

• Binding: Hardcover

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