Viennese humanist edition of the Malacca victory letter of Manuel I, with Spiegel’s preface
Epistola potentissimi ac invictissimi Emanuelis Regis Portugaliae & Algarbiorum, &c. De Victoriis habitis in India, & Malacha.
4to (143 x 210 mm). (8) pp. Late 19th century full red morocco by Chambolle-Duru with the arms of José Pinto Leite to both covers; gilt turn-ins. All edges gilt.
€ 45.000,00
Excessively rare second Latin edition of the celebrated and highly important letter from King Manuel I of Portugal (1469-1521) to the recently-elected Pope Leo X, reporting on the conquest of Malacca, Goa and Diu in India. The Vienna issue, printed by Hieronymus Vietor and Johannes Singriener, appeared within weeks of the Roman editio princeps (dated 9 August) and includes a new preface by the humanist Jakob Spiegel (1483-1547), secretary to Emperor Maximilian I. His verses, beginning “Deus cunctis ex gentibus unam … Ortus & occasus facili commertia nixu”, interpret Portuguese maritime expansion as a providential uniting of East and West through commerce and faith.
"As early as the late 16th century, copies of this epistle must have been so rare that neither Andr. and Francis Schottus, nor Pistorius had any account of it. Thus the value of the present impression necessarily increases" (cf. Denis).
A succinct and highly influential specimen of early modern propaganda linking imperial policy, missionary ambition, and humanist interpretation. One of the earliest continental witnesses to the Portuguese discoveries and the European arrival in Southeast Asia.
Rare in commerce: Rare, the last copies at Sotheby's in 1971 and Reiss in 1989. A fine copy in a distinguished 19th-century binding.
Once in the Dorotheerkloster, Vienna (contemporary ownership inscription on colophon page). José Pinto Leite, 2nd Count of Penha Longa (1871-1956; supralibros). With Maggs Bros., A Royal Catalogue issued to Commemorate the Silver Jubilee of H. M. King George V, 1935, cat. 606, no. 582. Later in the library of the Brazilian lawyer and businessman José Mindlin (1914-2010; his bookplate).
Tips rubbed; boards mildly darkened; woodcut arms on title pressed; clean, well-preserved leaves.
VD 16, P 4374. Denis I, 86. Faria, Uma relação de Rui de Pina (1966), p. 75, no. 4 and plate. Brunet II, 969 (note). Cf. Streit IV, 380; Gulbenkian, Portugal & Persia 13. Not in BL-German or Adams; not in Rodrigues, Bibliotheca Brasiliense.
