The first edition to include decade IX
Decadas da Asia.
Small folio (222 x 302 mm). 3 volumes bound as two. (32), 605, (1) pp. (14), 607-931, (1), 75, (1) pp. (16), 625, (1) pp. All 3 title-pages printed in red and black. Contemporary full mottled brown calf with giltstamped red labels to finely gilt spines (not uniform). Edges sprinkled red.
€ 4.500,00
Continuation of João de Barros's famous work on Portuguese colonial history in the Orient. First published in 1602, this is the first edition to include decade IX. Do Couto (1542-1616), chronicler and custodian of Torre do Tombo, begins with Decada IV, in continuation of de Barros's Decada III. (When de Barros's own Decada IV was discovered and posthumously published in 1615, the work effectively acquired another treatment of the same period with a different text, both numbered IV). "The 'Decades' contain "the early history of the Portuguese in India and Asia and reveal careful study of Eastern historians and geographers, as well as of the records of [the author's] own country. They are distinguished by clearness of exposition and orderly arrangement. They are also lively accounts" (Enc. Britannica).
Vols. I and II bound in a single volume. Some worming to spine-ends, with traces of worming to inner margin of the final four leaves of vol. III. A clean copy.
Innocencio II, 154. Monteverde 1900. Cordier, BJ, 34 and BS, 2309. Cf. Macro 763. Not in Samodães or Ameal.
