TEIVE, Diogo de.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Comentarius de rebus in India apud dium gestis anno salutis nostrae M.D.XLVI. The rare first edition of this account of Portuguese conquests in western India, focussing on the furious seven-month second siege of the stronghold at Diu in 1546. This is one of two contemporary celebrations of the Portuguese victory; the other was by Damião de Góis. It was commissioned from the humanist Diogo de Teive (c.1513-1565) by King João III. "To fulfil its objective of monopolizing the East Indian spice trade, Portugal had to wrest control of the Arabian Sea from Egyptian Muslims. In addition to establishing forts and equipping trading posts in India, the Portuguese began a military offensive against the Muslims by attacking and sinking an Egyptian fleet off the island of Diu, a possession of India's Muslim state of Gujarat, in 1509" (Kohn, p. 377). The earlier siege of Diu in 1538 reflected its strategic importance: along with Damman and Goa it became part of what Kohn describes as the "triumvirate of fortified trade centres dominating the eastern end of the Arabian Sea". The second siege of Diu (20 April - 10 November 1546) was conducted by the forces of the Sultanate of Gujarat under Khadjar Safar, the Portuguese defenders being led by João de Mascarenhas. The siege was lifted after intervention from a fleet commanded by João de Castro. Included are laudatory epigrams by the humanist João da Costa and the Scottish writer and historian George Buchanan, who in 1547 accompanied his collea

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.