ARMS OF OVIEDO.
Reduced from the cut at the end of the edition of Oviedo, 1535.
The bibliography of Oviedo deserves to be traced. His initial publication, De la natural hystoria de las Indias, was printed at Toledo in 1526,—not in 1525, as the Real Academia says in their reprint, nor 1528, as Ticknor gives it. It is often cited as Oviedo’s Sumario, since that is the first word of the secondary title. (Cf. Sabin, Dictionary, vol. xiv. no. 57,987; Harrisse, Notes on Columbus, p. 12; and Bibl. Amer. Vet., no. 139; Ternaux, no. 35; Rich, 1832, no. 6, £12 12s.; Carter-Brown, i. 89.) There are also copies in the Library of Congress and Harvard College. The Spanish text is included in Barcia’s Historiadores primitivos and in Vedia’s Hist. prim. de Indias, 1858, vol. i. It is in large part translated into English in Eden’s Decades of the New World, 1555 (chap. 18), and this version is condensed in Purchas’s Pilgrimes, iv. 5. There is an Italian version in Ramusio’s Viaggi, iii. 44.
The publication of Oviedo’s great work, which is quite different from the 1526 book, was begun at Seville, in 1535, under the title of Historia general de las Indias. In this he gave the first nineteen books, and ten chapters of book 20. At the end is a carta missiva, to which the author usually attached his own signature, and that annexed is taken (slightly reduced) from the copy in Harvard College Library. (Cf. Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,988; Harrisse, Bibl. Am. Vet., no. 207; Murphy, nos. 1886-87; Carter-Brown, i. 114, with fac-simile of title.) Ramusio translated these nineteen books. In 1547, what purports to be a summary, but is in fact a version, of Xeres by Jacques Gohory, appeared in Paris as L’histoire de la terre neuve du Péru en l’Inde occidentale. (Cf. Bib. Am. Vet., no. 264; Ternaux, no. 52; Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,994.)
In 1547 a new edition of the Spanish, somewhat increased, appeared at Salamanca as Coronica de las Indias; la hystoria general de las Indias agora nueuamente impressa, corregida, y emendada. Sometimes it is found in the same cover with the Peru of Xeres, and then the title varies a little. The book is rare and costly. Rich, in 1832 (no. 17), priced it at £10 10s.; it has been sold recently at the Sunderland sale for £61, and in the library of an old admiral (1883, no. 340) for £40; Quaritch has priced it at £63, and Maisonneuve (Leclerc, no. 432), at 1,000 francs. There is a copy in Harvard College Library. (Cf. Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,989; Carter-Brown, i. 145; Bibl. Am. Vet., no. 278; Additions, no. 163; and Murphy, no. 1885.)
A full French translation of ten books, made by Jean Poleur, appeared in Paris under the title of Histoire naturelle et généralle des Indes, without the translator’s name in 1555, and with it in 1556. (Cf. Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,992-93; Ternaux, no. 47; Carter-Brown, i. 214; Beckford, iii. 342; Murphy, no. 1884; Leclerc, no. 434, 130 francs, and no. 2,888, 350 francs; Quaritch, no. 12,313, £7 10s.) There is a copy in Harvard College Library.
The twentieth book, Libro xx de la segunda parte de la general historia de las Indias appeared for the first time and separately at Valladolid in 1557; the death of the author while his book was in press prevented the continuance of its publication. (Cf. Rich, 1832, no. 34, £6 6s.; Sabin, vol. xiv. no. 57,991; Carter-Brown, i. 219.)