[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 (240 x 170 mm), later full vellum with ornate gilt-tooled decoration; [9] preliminary leaves, 264 ff (colophon to verso of leaf 264, with date of 1608), [1 errata] page with woodcut decorations; title with printer’s device and early ownership inscription; woodcut initials; preliminaries and first 60 leaves with repaired upper margins (small loss of text); leaves 53-66 with repaired worm tracks (some loss of text); leaves 110-130 with small repairs to fore-edge margin (loss to a few letters here and there); leaf 209-250 with repairs at lower outer corners (small loss of text); leaves 246-264 with repairs to upper outer corners (some loss of text); occasional ink marks; lacking the engraved plate, else a good copy.

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