[Travel & Exploration] [Cortes, Hernan] Lorenzana, Francisco Antoni. Historia de Nueva-Espana, Escrita por su Esclarecido Conquistador Hernan Cortes...

Mexico City: Imprenta del Superior Gobierno, del Br. D. Joseph Antonio da Hogal, 1770. First edition. 4to. (xx), xvi, 176, (2), 177-400, (18) pp. Title-page printed in red and in black, and with an engraved vignette. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece and 35 engraved plates (three folding, including two maps). Three-quarter brown calf over marbled paper-covered boards, brown morocco spine label, stamped in blind and in gilt, boards and extremities rubbed and lightly worn; top edge stained dark, other edges speckled red; light scattered spotting to text. Hill, pp. 66-69; Sabin 42065; Wagner, The Spanish Southwest 152

A handsome first edition of this "important and highly esteemed work, containing the celebrated letters of Cortes to the Emperor Charles V." (Sabin). Lorenzana collected the historical documents for this work while Archbishop of Mexico from 1766-72, and includes the second, third, and fourth letters of Cortes, information relating to the conquest and early history of New Spain, as well as an account of Cortes's voyage to Baja California and notices of subsequent expeditions to California up to 1769. It also contains significant illustrations, including between pp. 176-177, 31 full-page engraved plates depicting a Mexican codex with hierographic characters, with a transcription and translation related to the tributes paid to Aztec Emperor Montezuma by various towns prior to the Spanish conquest. Of the two maps, the larger depicts New Spain with Cortes's routes, while the second smaller map shows Baja California and the West Coast of Mexico. According to Lorenzana this was copied from the original manuscript created in 1541 and held in the Cortes family archive (which has apparently been lost), and which first established that California was a peninsula and not an island.

Property from a Distinguished Pennsylvania Collection

This lot is located in Philadelphia.

Provenance:

The owners of this collection were part-owners of an international company which carried them across the globe and frequently to China. It was during these journeys that their fascination with Chinese works of art first took hold, nurtured by encounters with objects that spoke to both artistry and heritage. Over the course of a single decade, between 1986 and 1996, they assembled the core of their collection—acquiring primarily from leading dealers in the United States, with select additions from Europe, Canada, and Hong Kong.

來源：

本品由某國際集團的家族後人委托。作爲經營者，委托方奔波四海，1986-1996年間頻繁往返中美，藏品中的書畫和珍玩在此期間購自歐洲、加國和香港古董商。

[Travel & Exploration] [Cortes, Hernan] Lorenzana, Francisco Antoni. Historia de Nueva-Espana, Escrita por su Esclarecido Conquistador Hernan Cortes...