Lorenzana, Francisco Antonio:

$8,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

HISTORIA DE NUEVA-ESPAÑA, ESCRITA POR SU ESCLARECIDO CONQUISTADOR HERNAN CORTES, AUMENTADA CON ORTROS DOCUMENTOS, Y NOTAS.... This copy bears the bookplate of Hiram Bingham (1875-1956), the important explorer, historian, and Yale lecturer who "rediscovered" the Incan city of Machu Picchu in 1911. The volume was deaccessioned by Yale as a duplicate.A major work concerning the conquest of Mexico and the Southwest, assembled by the Archbishop of Mexico, including printings of Cortes' second, third and fourth letters, an account of his voyage to the peninsula of California, and notices of the subsequent expeditions up to 1769. The inserted section of thirty-one full-page engraved plates constitutes a facsimile of a Mexican codex, with sectional title, transcription and translation relating to the tributes paid to Montezuma by various towns prior to the conquest. The two maps are of particular interest, the larger being a general map of New Spain, and the smaller being a map of the California peninsula which Lorenzana states is based on the original in the Cortes family archives, which appears to have been subsequently lost. The two engraved plates are a folding view of the Great Temple of Mexico, and the Mexican calendar.A significant gathering of historical accounts of the Spanish Southwest, augmented by maps and pictorial matter of the greatest interest.

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