Libro, de la Monteria que mando escrevir el muy poderoso Rey Don Alonso de Castilla, y de Leon. Acrecentado por Goncalo Argote de Molina. Dirigido A la S. C. R. M. del Rey Don Philipe Segundo. Nuerto Senor.
Sevilla: Andrea Pescioni, 1582. First edition. With 35 woodcut illustrations, some recurring. Decorated with heraldic woodcut on the title page, numerous woodcut initials and a tailpiece, and woodcut printer's devices on 4¶4 and on the last leaf. Text printed in two columns. In 19th century, empire style, red morocco binding, lavishly stamped in gilt and blind, signed on the spine (Durand). The blind stamped panels are decorated with large, gilt, oval ornament in the centre, and ruled with an inner floral and geometric blind frame and a thin gilt frame. Spine with five raised bands, four of the compartments are richly gilt with floral ornamentation, and two are lettered in gilt. Inner edges of the panels and the edges of the book are also gilt. With marbled endpapers. Collation: (?)6, ¶8, 2¶–3¶6, 4¶4, A6, B–L8, M5; ff: (1 [title, verso blank]), (5), 25 [i.e. 23: 1–13, 9, 17–25], (1 [with woodcut printer’s device]), Artistically restored supposedly at the same time as the binding. The restoration has occasional minor effects to the text, 2¶8 slightly over trimmed with no effects on print space. Traces of removed marginal notes on four leaves. Modest ownership stamps on ¶1 and A1. Sporadic foxing. Overall a beautiful copy, in very good condition.
First edition of the first Spanish book on hunting, with thirty-five woodcut illustrations, three of them representing hunting scenes in the Americas.
Libro, de la Monteria is the first Spanish book on hunting, and also the earliest about hunting in the Americas. The core of the text was written in the 14th century by the commission of Alfonso XI of Castile (1310–1350). The present book is the first printed edition of it, which is considerably enlarged by the editor Gonzalo Argote de Molina (1548–1596), the Spanish humanist writer and historian.
Argote de Molina added the section “Discurso” to the book, which – among other parts – contains a pastoral eclogue by Luys Gomez de Tapia, chapters on hunting elephants in India and Africa and bison in Poland. It also includes three chapters on hunting in the New World, in Peru (Chaco; chapter XXXV.), Mexico (Oxio; chapter XXXVI.) and the “Indias Ocidentales”, the West Indies (Santo Domingo, Cuba, Tierra Firme and New Spain; chapter XXXVII.). These chapters describe the hunting of some of the curious animals of the Americas, like guanaco, vicunas and ostrich (rhea) in Peru, leopard or puma, and wild boar in Mexico, and wild bull in Venezuela and Cuba. Three woodcut illustrations are representing such huntings.
The thirty-five illustrations (eighteen different images, some recurring), which are the first collection of hunting scenes published in Spain, were created by Juan de Arfe y Villafane (1535–1603) or Mateo Pérez de Alesio (1547–1628) [Santonocito, 2016. pp. 240–241.]. The image of the bullfight (Discurso f. 9v [i.e. 14v]) is considered to be the first printed representation of the noble sport.
Bibl.: Santonocito, D.: Los grabados del Libro de la montería (Sevilla: Andrea Pescioni, 1582). In: Lacarra, M. J., García, N. A. (ed.): La literatura medieval Hispánica en la imprenta (1475–1600). Valencia: Universidad de València, 2016. pp. 215–242.; Sports and Pastimes From the Fourteenth Through the Eighteenth Century. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1946. p. 12.;
Not in Sabin or Howes; Harting 242; Palau 16167; Schwerdt I, 44; Souhart 24; Streeter 4080; Yemeniz catalogue 3873; Gutierrez de la Vega 115.
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Price: €40,000.00