This edition has a new engraving of the map in the Nuremberg edition, though Quaritch and others have doubted if such a map belongs to it. Leclerc (no. 151) chronicles copies with and without the map.[1115] An abstract of the second letter in Italian, Noue de le Isole et Terra Ferma nouamente trouate, had already appeared two years earlier, in 1522, at Milan.[1116]
There were other contemporary abstracts of this letter. Sigmund Grimm, of Augsburg, is said to be the author of one, published about 1522 or 1523, called Ein schöne newe Zeytung, so kayserlich Mayestet auss India yetz newlich zūckommen seind. It is cited in Harrisse and the Bibliotheca Grenvilliana; and Ternaux (no. 5) is thought to err in assigning the date of 1520 to it, as if printed in Augsburg. Of about the same date is another described by Sabin (vol. iv. no. 16,952) as printed at Antwerp, and called Tressacree Imperiale et Catholique Mageste ... eust nouvelles des marches ysles et terre ferme occeanes. This seems to be based, according to Brunet, Supplément (vol. i. col. 320), on the first and second letters, beginning with the departure, in 1519, from Vera Cruz, and ending with the death of Montezuma.[1117]
The second letter forms part of various collected editions, as follows:—
In Spanish. Bancroft (Mexico, i. 543) notes the second and third letters as being published in the Spanish Thesóro de virtudes in 1543.
Barcia’s Historiadores primitivos (1749); also edited by Enrique de Vedia, Madrid, 1852-1853.
Historia de Nueva España, escrita por su esclarecido Conquistador Hernan Cortés, aumentada con otros documentos y notas por Don Francisco Antonio Lorenzana, arzobispo de México, Mexico, 1770. This important work, embracing the second, third, and fourth letters, has a large view of the great temple of Mexico, a map of New Spain,[1118] and thirty-one plates of a hieroglyphic register of the tributaries of Montezuma,—the same later reproduced in better style by Kingsborough. Lorenzana was born in 1722, and rising through the gradations of his Church, and earning a good name as Bishop of Puebla, was made Archbishop of Toledo shortly after he had published the book now under consideration. Pius VI. made him a cardinal in 1789, and he died in Rome in 1804. Icazbalceta was not able to ascertain whether the Bishop had before him the original editions of the letters or Barcia’s reprint; but he added to the value of his text by numerous annotations. In 1828 an imperfect reprint of this book, “á la ortografía moderna,” was produced in New York for the Mexican market, by Manuel del Mar, under the title of Historia de Méjico,[1119] to which a life of Cortés, by R. C. Sands, was added.[1120] Icazbalceta notes some of the imperfections of this edition in his Coleccion, vol. i. p. xxxv.[1121]
Cartas y relaciones al Emperador Carlos V., colegidas é ilustradas por P. de Gayangos, Paris, 1866. Besides the Cortés letters, this distinguished scholar included in this book various other contemporary documents relating to the Conquest, embracing letters sent to Cortés’ lieutenants; and he also added an important introduction. He included the fifth letter for the first time in the series, and drew upon the archives of Vienna and Simancas with advantage.[1122]
The letters were again included in the Biblioteca histórica de la Iberia published at Mexico in 1870.
In Latin. The second and third letters, with the account of Peter Martyr, were issued at Cologne in 1532, with the title De insulis nuper inventis, etc., as shown in the annexed fac-simile of the title, with its portrait of Charles V. and the escutcheons of Spanish towns and provinces.[1123]