[Primera Parte de los] Commentarios Reales, que tratan del Origen de los Yncas,

reyes que fueron del Peru, de su idolatria, leyes, y gouierno en paz y en guerra … Con licencia de la Sancta Inquisicion, Ordinario, y Paco. En Lisboa: En la officina de Pedro Crasbeeck, 1609 [but 1608]. Small folio, late eighteenth-century full mottled calf (rubbed, some wear to edges and corners), spine with raised bands and morocco title label lettered in gilt; marbled endpapers, paste-down with early bookplate (contemporary with binding); edges stained red; [9] unnumbered leaves (lacking engraved coat of arms), 264 ff.; lacking errata leaf; colophon to verso of leaf 264, with date of 1608, and with an early ownership signature; woodcut initials; text in double columns; title-leaf re-margined, and with modern ownership stamp with monogram FvD, occasional marginal water-staining including to top outer corners of preliminaries, f. 1 repaired at upper margin.

The first edition of the first part of Inca historian Garcilaso de la Vega’s Commentarios reales de los Incas, the first work published by an Andean mestizo writer. Garcilaso, the son of a conquistador and an Indian woman of royal blood, was born in Cuzco within a generation of the Spanish conquest, hence his description of pre-conquest Incan culture and society is near contemporary and unsurpassed in its importance as a primary source for this subject. In 1560 Garcilaso travelled to Spain, where he was to remain until his death. The second part of Commentarios reales de los Incas, dealing with the conquest and first phase of the colonial period, was published at Cordova in 1616.

Medina, BHA, 549; Palau 35478; Sabin 98757