[Obra de las cosas memorables de España.] Obra Compuesta por Lucio Marineo Siculo Coronista de de sus Majestades de las cosas memorables de España. Con privilegio Imperial por x. Años.
Alcalá de Henares: Miguel de Eguía, May 1533. First Spanish edition in this revised state. Woodcut armorial title page with early ownership inscriptions. Woodcut initials throughout. Somewhat later limp vellum, title and floral ornament inked to spine. ff. [10] CXC [1]. Vellum creased, with surface abrasions and remains of ties. Text block sound. Paper generally toned, with scattered foxing and staining, including more pronounced dampstaining to the margins and occasional dark spots. Fol. XXVII with a closed tear affecting the text block, but not legibility. Final blank leaf not present. Early manuscript annotations to margins in places. Overall in good, unrestored condition.
An early Spanish humanist history of Spain, including an account of Columbus and one of the earliest recorded notices of the Roman coin legend in America, and containing the first printed words in Basque.
A shortened issue of Marineo Sículo’s principal historical work on Spain, originally published in 1530 in both Latin (De rebus Hispaniae memorabilibus) and, as here, in Spanish. Conceived as a comprehensive humanist history of the Iberian peninsula, the work combines geographical description with dynastic and political narrative and represents one of the earliest Renaissance attempts to present Spain within a unified historical and cultural framework.
Of particular interest is the early notice of Columbus (fol. CLXI), here named “Pedro Colón,” in the section on the Catholic Monarchs. The passage describes the voyage to the Indies, undertaken with thirty-five ships (“caravels”) and a large company of men, to lands described as “other islands of our hemisphere,” and is immediately followed by the well-known anecdote of a coin of Augustus reportedly discovered in the New World, in a gold mine of the tierra firme (Panama). This passage constitutes the earliest recorded account of such a discovery, from which the later tradition of supposed Roman coins found in America derives (Epstein, 1980).
The work also includes the first printed words in Basque: a short vocabulary of Spanish words with their equivalents in “Vizcayno” (Basque), together with a brief section on Basque numerals (fol. XXIX). Of Hungarian interest, the final historical sections contain a brief laudatory notice of Ferdinand I, King of Hungary, presented within the context of Habsburg dynastic policy and anti-Ottoman campaigns (fol. CXC).
This issue represents a deliberate reduction of the 1530 text, explicitly addressed within the book in the section “Las cosas que faltan en esta obra” (fol. CXC). The substantial concluding section De los claros varones de España, a prosopographical catalogue of notable Spaniards—including contemporary nobles, clerics, and scholars, as well as women (De algunas mugeres illustres de España)—was omitted “por voluntad y parecer” of the Catholic Monarchs, in order to avoid disputes arising from the inclusion or exclusion of living figures.
The present 1533 Spanish-language printing, commonly described as a second edition, is textually revised but, apart from the preliminaries and concluding leaves, the main text block is identical to that of the 1530 impression, retaining the original typographical composition. In addition to the identical page layout and line division, it preserves the same series of foliation errors already present in the 1530 edition (e.g. fol. LXXIX misnumbered as LXXXI, fol. CIV as LXXXV, and fol. CXLII as CXLIIII), indicating that the 1533 issue was produced by reworking remaining copies or printed stock of the 1530 edition, with the outer gatherings replaced rather than the text reset.
More precisely, the prologue remains unchanged, while alteration begins in the tabla: in the 1530 edition the preliminaries are signed with cross-mark gatherings (two successive quires), whereas in the present issue the second of these is reduced and reset. Thereafter the text continues in the same typographical setting, the final gathering likewise identical up to A5 and differing only thereafter. This pattern shows that the revision was carried out by partial replacement of gatherings rather than recomposition of the whole, a feature which, to the best of our knowledge, is here noted in this form for the first time and clarifies both the close identity of the two states and the extreme rarity of the 1530 editions in both languages.
Marineo Sículo (Lucio Marineo Sículo, c. 1444–1536), a Sicilian humanist active at the court of Ferdinand and Isabella, served as royal chronicler and was among the earliest Renaissance historians of the Iberian peninsula. Educated in the Italian humanist tradition and later active at the University of Salamanca, he played a role in the introduction of humanist learning into Spain and was entrusted with the education of the nobility. His earlier De Hispaniae laudibus (Burgos, Fadrique de Basilea [Friedrich Biel], ca. 1500) already presents a proto-form of the present work, constructing the prestige of Spain through geography and classical testimony; this program was subsequently expanded into a broader historical narrative, which in its original form also included a canon of notable individuals.
An early vernacular witness to the reception of the discovery of the Indies, preserving one of the earliest printed accounts of Columbus in Spanish together with the influential Roman coin legend.
Sabin 44584; Martín Abad. Alcalá de Henares, 1502–1600, 249
References: Epstein, J. F. (1980). Pre-Columbian Old World Coins in America: An Examination of the Evidence. Current Anthropology, 21(1), 1–20.
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Price: €28,000.00