GALVÃO (António). TRATADO dos Descobrimentos Antigos e Modernos. Lisboa Occidental. 1731.

GALVÃO (António). TRATADO dos Descobrimentos Antigos e Modernos. Lisboa Occidental. 1731.
GALVÃO (António)
TRATADO dos Descobrimentos Antigos e Modernos. Feitos até a Era de 1550, com os nomes particulares das pessoas que os fizerão: e em que tempo, e as suas alturas, e dos desvairados caminhos por onde a pimenta, e especiaria veyo da India ás nossas partes; obra certo muy notavel, e copiosa. Lisboa Occidental: Na Officina Ferreiriana, 1731.

[ ], §-§§§2, A-L4, M6; [16], 100 pp.; 260 mm. Modern full calf, gilted on spine and covers; trimmed; white stamp and signature on title page of Aníbal Fernandes Thomaz [important professor and colector in Portugal].

SECOND edition, very rare, of this remarkable work on the Portuguese Discoveries. Son of the chronicler Duarte Galvão, António Galvão was probably born in India, having developed important activities in the Moluccas, in particular the pacification of that territory and the evangelizing action. The recognition was such that he received the cognomen of Apostle of the Moluccas. This work of his, whose first edition, of which very few copies are known, was published posthumously in 1563, is an important coeval reference to the Portuguese presence in the East. It was translated into English as early as 1601, with an anonymous translation, but revised by the geographer Richard Hakluyt. This second edition is also extremely rare. According to Inocêncio, "most of the copies perished in a bookseller's shop where they existed on the occasion of the 1755 earthquake." Important and valuable.

¶ D.H.P., v. 3, p. 98; Inocêncio, v.1, p. 147; Sabin, 26468; BdMII, 289; Palau, 182290