MEXICO - UNA PIÑATA BIBLIOGRÁFICA
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For a separate list of additional 19th-Century Mexicana,  click here. NOW, ILLUSTRATED!

He Survived “La Noche Triste” & Much, Much More
   THE CONQUEROR'S REWARD  

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•  Pedro de Villanueva was one of the conquistadores of Mexico.  He was among Cortés's original party, part of the Francisco de Saucedo (also spelled “Salcedo”) contingent, whose ship was delayed in leaving Cuba.  With Saucedo, a friend of Cortés, he arrived at Villarica de Veracruz in July of 1519, shortly after Cortés and his men had destroyed the “idols” at Cempoala.

Villanueva was among the small but grand “army” that marched into Tenochtitlán in the Spring of 1520 and in July of the same year were to flee the western world's largest city fighting for their lives, on the “Noche Triste.”  He survived the hell and slaughter of the causeways and later returned with the greatly augmented force that destroyed the Aztec capital and its empire. Still later he was with Cortés in the exploration and conquest of Pánuco and following that with Nuño de Guzmán in the exploration and conquest of Zacatecas and Jalisco. He and his brother Fernando (also a member of the Saucedo contingent) jointly received an encomienda (Quechula) and settled in Puebla de los Angeles where Pedro served as a regidor on the town council in the 1540s and 1550s.

In the last years of the 1550s Villanueva petitioned the crown for the grant of a coat of arms in recognition of his service to the crown in the conquest of Mexico.  Felipe II honored that request in this impressive document.  He enumerates the Conqueror's deeds, specifically mentioning Don Hernando Cortés and Nuño de Guzmán and the various conquests in which Villanueva participated.  He describes the coat of arms being granted and the significance of the colors and symbols.  The granted arms are beautifully accomplished in many colors within the text of the document, with that text yielding space to the large miniature: Measuring 17.5 x 15 cm (7" x 6"), the arms are painted with a formal frame delimiting their presentation on a red field with corner brackets of gold over blue.  Surmounting the arms is a knight's helm with plumage, trailing from which are decorative “swooshes.”  The new Villanueva arms are quartered, showing a cyphered “M” surmounted by a fleur de lis in the upper left, a crowned lion en passant in the upper right, an arm holding a sword rising out of a flowing river in the lower left, and a castle on a hill in the lower right.

The text of the grant of arms is elegantly indited in a standard court semi-round gothic in sepia ink and is enclosed on the left, right, and top sides by an illuminated and historiated sash-like border.  In the upper left and right corners are miniatures of Justice and Knowledge in sylvan settings.  Running between those two along the top of the document is a decorative panel incorporating flowers, fruits, mythic animals, and cherubs.  Below this, the king's name is accomplished in large letters of gold on a field of red accented with gold, and the “D” of his honorific “Don” is given special treatment.  This is elaborated in an ornate, almost baroque style that comes close to obfuscating the fact of its being a majuscule “d”:  Wrought in gold, the letter at first appears to be merely a “frame” for the royal coat of arms that fills its center.  The king's arms are accomplished in gold, white, black, red, and blue; the whole being laid on a blue field with white accents.

The panels running down the left and right sides of the document are accomplished in red, gold, green, pink, white, red, blue, and brown, many in several shades.  The decoration includes birds of several varieties including a fine owl, animals including a watchful rabbit, strawberries and other fruits, and flowers, ribbons, grotesques, and butterflies.




The document is signed in the king's name by Juana (Joanna Habsburg) de Austria,“princesa de Portugal.”  Married to Prince Juan of Portugal, young Juana (b. 1537) was the regent of the Spanish crown from 1554 until her brother Philip's return to Spain in September of 1559. She had just lost her husband to death and borne his posthumous son, both in January, 1554, when she left Portugal and her child in the Spring of that year to assume the regency throne in Valladolid.



In format and content this document differs dramatically from the cartas executorias de hidalguía that most collectors are familiar with.  Here we have a single large sheet of vellum handsomely engrossed, artfully illuminated, and exquisitely decorated with a composite border containing miniatures.  This is not a bound volume of copies of documents created for storage in the family archive. This was created for display in a prominent place of honor; and it is a magnificent display item.  This is not a grant of nobility nor a confirmation of it based on something that some vague ancestor did; rather it is a grant of a coat of arms to a man who himself performed significant military and other service for the Crown and whom the Crown wishes to honor both publicly and privately.  Only a few hundred of Cortés's men survived the Noche Triste, the reentry into and destruction of Mexico City, and the subsequent conquests in Panuco and elsewhere.  The number of grants such as this to actual members of Cortés's original “army” were few.

And surviving grants to those actual participants in the Conquest are extremely rare, even more so in commerce. This is the only royal grant of a coat of arms to an actual member of Cortés's “army” that we have seen that has ever appeared in the marketplace.  Via published auction records and our extensive archive of dealer catalogues, we trace no instance before this one of the offering for sale of a grant of arms to a Conqueror of Mexico.  Yes, there are examples in various libraries and museums in Mexico and Spain, and probably in the U.S., but such examples seem to have entered their institutional resting places via donation from descendants of Conquerors, not via purchase.

Provenance:  It is awesome to realize that this is no mere retained secretarial copy of Felipe's grant of arms to Pedro de Villanueva.  This gorgeous document not only records the king's rewards to one of Cortés's men, but was that Conqueror's personal property.  It is the copy of the decree sent to him expressly, by the Crown!



•  On Villanueva, see: Icaza, Diccionario autobiográfico de conquistadores y pobladores de la Nueva España, I, 88–89; Thomas, Who's Who of the Conquistadors, 146; Himmerich y Valencia, The Encomenderos of New Spain, 1521–1555, 262; Díaz del Castillo, Verdadera historia de la conquista de la Nueva España, chap. LIII. On Juana de Austria, see: the work of Dr. Kelli Ringhofer.  Overall in very good condition.  Some fold tears, some minor rubbing of small areas of images, stains as visible in our illustrations.  The wax seal and its silk cords no longer present. Text clear, not faded, and colors strong.

To review the pictures of this document more systematically than
“mousing over” the image at our description's top may allow:

This entry is repeated in the
“D–F” section of this
catalogue . . .

Cortés' Second Letter: The Conquest of Mexico

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•  The first Latin edition of Cortés's second letter, after its original Spanish-language publication in Seville in 1522; the work was translated by Petrus Savorgnanus, Secretary to the bishop of Vienna (1523–30). Cortés was the first conqueror since Julius Caesar to write a description of his conquests.

Cortés's second letter, dated 30 October 1520, provides a vivid account of the people he encountered and fought en route to Tenochtitlán, painting a picture of an impressive empire centered around a great city. He relates his scrape with rival Velázquez and gives a wonderful description of the buildings, institutions, and court at Tenochtitlán. It is here that Cortés provides a definitive name for the country, calling it “New Spain of the Ocean Sea.” This letter is also important for making reference to Cortés's “lost” first letter, supposedly composed at Vera Cruz on 10 July 1520. Whether that letter was actually lost or was suppressed by the Council of the Indies is unknown, though there is little doubt it once existed.

It is the text of this “second” letter, THE FIRST SURVIVING ONE, that was the first major announcement to the world of the discovery of major civilizations in the New World — and, as such, is a work of surpassing importance.

This copy bears the full-page woodcut portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf, which is not found with all copies. Additionally, the title-page bears an interesting 14-piece composite woodcut border and the verso of that page has a stunning full-page woodcut of the coat of arms of Charles V, the Holy Roman emperor, to whom the letter is addressed. The coat of arms is surrounded by the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes; the lay-out is elegant and there is one large, handsome woodcut initial.

As usual, the letter is here bound with Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et insulis noviter repertis, which provides an account of the recently discovered islands of the West Indies and their inhabitants. It is often considered a substitute for the lost Cortés letter.

One of the most important early descriptions of Mexico and of the first encounter of the West with the Aztec civilization, this is a work of bedrock importance to the New World. No complete copy has appeared for sale since 1985.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 524/5; Sabin 16947; Harrisse, BAV, 125. Sanz 933–34; Medina, BHA, 70; Church 53; Burden 5; JCB, German Americana, 524/4; Streeter Sale 190.   18th-century half vellum and sprinkled paper over boards, gilt red leather label. Map supplied in expert facsimile; blank leaf H8 lacking. Bookplate of John Carter Brown (Library) on front pastedown, with deaccession stamp. Occasional very minor soiling in the text, else very good — a copy clean and even crisp.  (26808)

This entry is repeated in the
“C” section of this
catalogue . . .

Full Set of Her Works, IncludingVillancicos in Nahuatl & an African Language

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•  “The Tenth Muse” to the Anglo-American audience is Anne Bradstreet, but throughout Spanish America and Spain, and in goodly parts of Europe, that sobriquet is associated only with Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Born in a small town in Mexico in 1651, she learned to read Latin before she was six. Denied admission to the Royal University in Mexico, she was to enter conventual life instead, develop a close friendship with the great colonial Mexican polymath Sigüenza y Góngora (the Cosmographer of New Spain), and write and publish the finest known poetry of the Spanish colonial empire in the period to 1821, as well as some plays and “Christmas carols.”

Uncontestedly she was the major New World lyric poet of the colonial era and she excelled in both spiritual and profane subjects. For a sense of her range of subjects, click to enlarge our images.  She invented a decasyllabic meter and cultivated dramatic poetry: Among her works are sonnets, redondillas, décimas, villancicos, and plays, as well as prose works, including the famous Carta athenagorica in which she criticizes the great Luso-Brazilian preacher and defender of the Brazilian Indians, Antônio Vieira. The contents here are mostly Spanish-language, but some portions are in Latin — and a few, as is seldom recognized, are in the black language of “Guinea” (e.g., Villancico VIII of the “Villancicos que se cantaron en la Sta. Iglesia Metropolitana de Mexico en honor de Maria Santissima Madre de Dios . . . y se imprimieron año de 1679") or in Nahuatl (e.g., Villancico V of the “Villancicos que se cantaron en la Santa Iglesia Metropolitana de Mexico, en honor de Maria Santissima Madre de Dios . . . año de 1687, en que se imprimieron”).

Sor Juana's individual works began to be printed in Mexico as early as 1677. Her “works” were soon gathered together, and in 1689 in Madrid there appeared Inundacion castalida de la unica poetica, musa decima (the title was changed the next year to Poemas de la unica poetisa americana, musa dezima, which it has remained ever since): This is now considered vol. I of her works. Vol. II (Tomo segundo de la obras de Soror Juana Ines de la Cruz) appeared in 1692 and the final volume (Fama y obras posthumas) in 1700. The issuance by one printer of all three volumes as a definite “set” seems not to have occurred until 1725; prior to that, printers issued individual volumes, or sometimes, vols. I and II alone.

In the offering here, vol. I was printed during the great poet's lifetime, and is one of the last to hold that distinction.

•  I: Palau 65222; Medina, BHA, 1870; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 691/74; Sabin 17735; this edition not in León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli. II: Palau 65237; Medina, BHA, 2540; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 725/111. III: Palau 65233; Medina, BHA, 2541; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 725/110.   Vols. I and II in original limp vellum; III in modern red morocco, gilt extra. Some age-toning and foxing in vol. II; same volume with light worming, at times in text, at rear, costing letters but not words. With slight faults only, this is a handsome set of this major writer's works.  (26753)

The Andrade Set inQuarter Red Morocco

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•  Written under his nom de plume of Gabriel de Cardenas Z Cano, the Ensayo cronologico, para la historia general de la Florida of Andrés González de Barcía has enjoyed constant readership since its initial publication in the early 18th century, when it was composed as a companion to González de Barcía's magisterial edition of Inca Garcilasso de la Vega's La Florida. The Ensayo is a history of not just Florida but virtually all of America north of Mexico from 1512 to 1722 and details the activities of the Spanish, French, and English, covering not just wars but offering much on the indigenous populations, New World diseases, and so on.

The present edition forms volumes 8 and 9 of the series Historia de la conquista del Nuevo Mundo.

Provenance:  Bookplate of the great 19th-century Mexican collector J. M. Andrade on the front pastedown of each volume.

•  This edition not in Sabin.   19th-century quarter red morocco with red textured cloth sides. Spine with raised bands and very good gilt tooling including center devices in spine compartments. Interiors clean. A very good set.  (25271)

A17th-Century Puebla Imprint

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•  First New World printing and the first separate printing of this work which had first appeared in 1692 in the author's Despertador eucharistico. The title is printed within a border of type ornaments and the text is rather handsomely printed in roman and italic types with a few large decorative woodcut initials. There are side- and shouldernotes. This edition was ordered to be printed by Antonio de Benavides y Bazan, the patriarch of the Indies.

Uncommon: We locate five copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Puebla, 159. Contemporary limp vellum with ties. Front hinge (inside) partially open and old repair to top of spine; text block starting to separate from binding, but still strong. Large private ownership stamp on front free endpaper. Unidentified marca de fuego on top edge. In all, a decent copy. (25111)

Very Neat Printing — The Bishop Reports (& Reminds)

Belaunzarán y Ureña, José María de Jesús.

•  The bishop of Monterrey had been to Mexico City to lobby for support for the Catholic Church, and here he lobbies his flock for the same.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Clean, nice.

La puntual observancia — Do It Right

Belaunzarán y Ureña, José María de Jesús. Quinta carta pastoral que sobre la puntual observancia de los sagrados ritos y ceremonias, en la celebracion de la santa misa y administracion de los santos sacramentos, dirige a su clero.... Mexico: Impr. de Luis Abadiano y Valdes, 1836. 8vo. 34 pp.
$100.00

•  A call for attention to detail in the celebration of mass and other clerical duties and obligations.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Clean and nice.

TheThreat of Protestantism

Belaunzarán y Ureña, José María de Jesús. Segunda carta pastoral que dirige a su clero y diocesanos..., el...obispo de Monterey [sic]. México: Impr. de Luis Abadiano y Valdes, 1835. 8vo. 16 pp.
$100.00

•  Concerns the influx of Protestant theological and doctrinal publications.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Light stain in upper outer corners, and on title-page (only) in an additional few places. Still, a crisp, good copy.

BeStrong in Your Faith

Belaunzarán y Ureña, José María de Jesús. Septima carta pastoral que el...obispo de Monterey, dirige a su venerable clero secular y regular y diocesanos. Mexico: Impreso por Jose Uribe y Alcalde, 1838. 8vo. 14 pp.
$100.00

•  Talks of how hard it is to be a Mexican because of the endless round of war, hunger, and turmoil, and of the need to be strong in one’s religion.

•  Removed from a nonce volume. Light foxing in some upper margins. Crisp.

Gold & Silver Conversion Tables
  fromthe Press of a Woman Printer

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•  Mining was one of the chief industries of colonial Mexico, and after a century of decline during the 1600s, the 18th century saw a renaissance in ore extraction, chiefly due to new technologies that made it possible to rework old ore and to achieve higher than previously imagined levels of silver and gold extracted from newly mined ore. Berdugo's work is a vade mecum of conversion tables of values for gold of different carats and for silver of different values of purity.

The work was absolutely essential for all merchants and other business people, and for government workers in the treasury department — for milled coins were the exception in Mexican commerce, cob pieces the norm, and raw gold and silver, including dust, were extremely common.

The volume ends with the “Reglas varias, para sacar juntos, o separados en pasta, o en moneda los reales derechos, que se pagan a S. Mag. De el oro y de la plata, y para reducir a toda su ley estos metales.”

An uncommon economic work: We trace fewer than nine copies in the U.S.

This was printed by Doña Maria de Rivera with a red and black title-page, and with woodcut arms on first dedication page. The charming cut of a herald cherub appears after the decima dedicated to the author at the end of the preliminaries.

•  Medina, Mexico, 4073.   Contemporary full Mexican calf, modestly tooled in gilt and with all edges red; recased, new endpapers. Final two leaves little ragged at edges costing a few letters and with small hole at center and short tears at inner margin; old staining and age-toning/browning throughout. There is every indication that this well-produced little volume saw time “in the field”!  (26850)

“Genuine Specimens of Native Literature”
Maya & English Presentations — With Notes

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•  First edition, uncut copy. First printing in the U.S. of any pre-Columbian text in the original Maya. This is no. I in the “Brinton's Library of Aboriginal American Literature” series, opening with a description of the Maya and including selections from the books of Chilam Balam of Mani, Tizimin, and Chumayel, along with the chronicle of Chac Xulub Chen. Each Mayan text is accompanied by an English translation and the editor's notes.

•  Not in Pilling, Proof-sheets; not in Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection.   Publisher's brown textured cloth framed in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding slightly cocked, corners and spine extremities a little rubbed, spine a bit sunned. Ex–social club library: call number on front fly-leaf, half-title and title-page rubber-stamped. No other markings.  (26511)

He Served UnderMORELOS

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•  Bustamante (1774–1848), the great post-Independence political thinker and historian, first published this work as Cuadro histórico de la revolución de la América Mexicana (México: M. Ontiveros, 1821–23), a work issued in parts, written in the form of letters, each letter separately paged with separate imprint. Bustamante had served under Morelos during the War for Independence and knew all of the major and many of the minor figures, making his work most valuable.

In this edition Lic. Pablo de Mendibil has edited the letters into four large chapters and added lithographic portraits of Hidalgo, Morelos, Bravo, Guerrero, and Guadalupe Victoria. They are variously from originals by Gauci or unidentified artists, and are lithographed by either R.Cooper or Englemann & Co.

•  Sabin 47810; Palau 163362 (under Mendibil).   Mid–19th century half red leather, flat spine, machine-made marbled paper on covers and as endpapers, marbled edges. Leather abraded and refurbished; interior clean and nice.  (21727)

TO Part II . . .

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