The Portuguese in India

Pereyra, Antonio Pinto. Historia no Tempo em que a Gouernovo Viso Rey Dom Luis de Ataide.

Very rare first edition of this early history of the Portuguese in India, including the Arabian Peninsula (cf. p. 42: "os Arabios aguarnição de Turcos, que nella estaua, & entregarem a cidade ao Xarife da lerra, filho do ultimo rey Arabio"; p. 52: "Mouros de carapuça vindos da costa de Arabia"; etc.). Portuguese expansion into the Indian Ocean began in the early 16th century following Vasco da Gama's explorations and led to numerous armed conflicts with the Ottoman Empire along the coast of the Arabian Gulf. Here, the Portuguese asserted their suzerainity for more than two centuries: only in 1750 did Nasir bin Murshid al-Yaribi, Imam of Oman, oust the Portuguese from Muscat, which Afonso de Albuquerque had conquered in 1507.

The book consists of two parts, each with an extensive index of names. It describes the history of the Portuguese viceroyalty in India during the age of the rule of Don Luís de Ataíde, Count of Atouguia (1517-81), the 10th Vice-Roy of India (in 1568-71 and 1578-80). It was the time of the height of Portuguese naval power and of the prosperity of its East-Indian Viceroyalty, especially of Goa, which became the capital of the Viceroyalty in 1610. Antonio Pinto Pereira, "a native of the village of Mogadour, well-versed in the science of Political History, left a work published some years after his death which occurred in 1587" (Pope, E. M. India in Portuguese Literature [1937], 147).

Several ink corrections in a contemporary hand. Minor repairs to spine; modern endpapers; altogether a very good copy. Only three copies found in Worldcat (Yale University, the University of Leiden, and the British Library).