L'Asia del s. Giovanni di Barros, consigliero del christianissimo re di Portogallo: de' fatti de' portoghesi nello scoprimento, et conquista de' mari et terre di Oriente [&] Dell'Asia la Seconda Decca

Joao de Barros; Abel Bonnard; ULLOA, ALFONSO [Translator]

Venice: Vincenzo Valgrisio, 1562.

2 parts, bound in one. Bound in later vellum.  Yapp edges and vellum ties.  Very good binding. 2nd Italian ed. (The 1st Italian ed. was printed in 1561, this book was re-issued the next year with only title page altered.)  Text is generally clean and in very good condition.  Minor marginal dampstain to last 30 pages in the 2nd part. Collated. (10) 200; (8) 228.   Lacking 2 leaves in second part, ff. 226-227.  A previous owner has written, Christie's London, Feb. 1974 on fep.  The book is presumed to have been sold at that auction. Refs: Sabin 3647. Adams B255. Joao de Barros (1496-1570) was a Portuguese humanist historian in the service of John III (Joao) and crown administer for Guinea and the Indies. He served as "Feitor da Casa da India," or chief administrator of the overseas spice trade. "His position gave him access to documents of the Portuguese Empire in Asia and Africa and to the military and colonial officials that staffed it; he used this knowledge to produce his brilliantly written Decadas da Asia (1552–53, 1563), a stirring narrative of the building of the Portuguese Empire." - Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition. 2016. This volume contains the first two books of Barros' chronicle of the Portuguese navigations of Asia; chronicling the voyages of Vasco da Gama, Bartholomeo Diaz, Francisco and Alfonso d'Albuquerque, Pedro Cabral, etc. Barros "intended to bring together five sets of materials: older histories such as that of Zurara; the letters and papers normally generated by the Portuguese expeditions to Asia (and to a more limited extent those of the Spaniards) and their administration there; oral accounts gathered from those participants who returned alive, and to whom Barros had privileged access; written accounts in Portuguese, whether of travel or geographical surveys of a sort that were becoming increasingly common by the 1530s, some of which were spontaneous in composition and others solicited by Barros himself; and finally, written materials in Asian languages." SUBRAHMANYAM, SANJAY. "INTERTWINED HISTORIES: "CRONICA" AND "TARIKH" IN THE SIXTEENTH-CENTURY INDIAN OCEAN WORLD." History and Theory 49, no. 4 (2010): 135.  Full title: L'Asia; de' fatti de' Portoghesi nello scoprimento, & conquista de' mari & terre di Oriente. Nella quale oltre le cose appartenenti alla militia, si ha piena cognitione de tutte le citta, monti, & fiumi delle parti orientali, con la descrittione de' paesi & costumi de quei popoli.