Descrizione

Amsterdam, Gerard Kuyper, 1704. Two volumes in two. 12mo (15.8 x 9.9 cm). Engraved frontispieces and titles in red and black. [xx], 512; [viii], 492, [xxxviii] pp.; one large, folded, engraved map and three engraved plates, of which one is larger, folded. Contemporary full calf. Spines with five raised bands, compartments with gilt vignettes and morocco labels with gilt title and volume number. Boards with gilt dentelles. Edges speckled red. = This is a rare, early French edition as the later ones are from 1715, 1727, 1737 (this one fairly common), etc., and this edition was only preceded by a 1633 edition, published in Paris by Courbé. The work includes a detailed map of the Inca empire, and actually from Costa Rica and Trinidad in the north to Chile and Argentina in the south, and a folded plate of "Le temple du soleil". The two other plates show Inca rulers. The author, Garcilaso "El Inca" de la Vega (1539-1616), born in Cuzco, was the first scholar of mixed European and Inca descent. Armorial bookplate of John Stackhouse pasted on the front pastedowns. John Stackhouse (1742-1819) was a British botanist, and author of, e.g., Illustrationes Theophrasti in Usum Botanicorum (1811) in which names of plants in Theophrastus's works are linked to Linnaean names. Title shield of first volume lost, but visible as a "carbon" on the leather beneath; repaired tears in the temple plate. Otherwise a very good, remarkably well-preserved copy. Palau 354821; Sabin, 98752 (under Vega).