Oviedo y Valdes, Gonzalo Fernandez de:

$250,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

LA HISTORIA GENERAL DE LAS INDIAS. This famous work is the most extensive book on the New World written up to the time of publication, and is one of the chief sources to this day for many of the facts relating to the early history of the Spanish conquest of the New World. The colophon leaf is signed by Oviedo, as is found in some copies. Oviedo was a witness to that history from the beginning, having seen, as a young page at the Spanish court, the return of Columbus in 1493. In 1505 he went out to the Indies himself as an official, and subsequently served in a number of important administrative posts. Over the next three decades he kept extensive notes on the history of the Spanish in the New World and all he observed there, especially natural history and the Indians he encountered. He also interviewed all of the Spanish explorers to whom he had access. In 1526 he published a short work on the natural history of the Indies, followed nine years later by the present work. His industry provides an extraordinary description of the period, one that his high offices and education gave him a unique ability to record.Oviedo's work is illustrated with numerous woodcuts, which are the earliest extant reliable pictures of things in the New World. These include a number of botanical subjects such as prickly pear, as well as artifacts including the hammock, and natives, the most famous of which depicts Indians panning for gold. Oviedo was the first writer to gather detailed and accurate i

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