Item #1709 [Caption title:] Traslado de una carta en que declara todo lo sucedido en Estados de Flandes, desde fin de Agosto, hasta 20. de Octubre de 1624. Rodrigo de Lara.
[Caption title:] Traslado de una carta en que declara todo lo sucedido en Estados de Flandes, desde fin de Agosto, hasta 20. de Octubre de 1624.
The Siege of Breda

[Caption title:] Traslado de una carta en que declara todo lo sucedido en Estados de Flandes, desde fin de Agosto, hasta 20. de Octubre de 1624.

Madrid: Juan Delgado, 1624. First edition. Bifolio. (4) p. Chipped at outer margins, not affecting the text. Contemporary numerical inscriptions in upper margin of the first page. Tears, with tiny losses at the gutter, and slight loss to text at folds. Faint damp staining. Artistically restored, losses repaired in Japanese paper. Overall in good condition.

First edition of this scarce, Spanish, first-hand account about the first phase of the Siege of Breda, a significant battle of the Thirty (and Eighty) Years' War, whose end was immortalized by Velázquez’s famous painting The Surrender of Breda (Las lanzas).

The letter gives eyewitness information about the first months of the Spanish efforts in the Siege of Breda, led by Ambrogio Spinola, and about the successful driving off of the Dutch relief army under the leadership of Maurice of Nassau.

Not much is known about Rodrigo de Lara, the author of the report, who must have been accompanying the troops as a secretary or in some such role, and who – as he refers in the text – updated Madrid about former encounters of the Spanish armies with the Protestants in Central Europe too (Espejo, Baena; p. 209).

The text was published first in Madrid in the present publication, and very soon it was copied in Seville by Juan de Cabrera (USTC 5023741) and in Barcelona by Jaime Matevad (USTC 5023742). Scarce.

Ref.: USTC 5037672 and 5012922; IB 46445 and 46447

Bibl.: Espejo, C., Baena, F. (2006): The Seville printer Juan de Cabrera (1623-1631): The Production of Serial News Pamphlets In 17th Century Spain. In: Communication & Society 29(4), 203– 218.

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Price: €2,000.00

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