La Florida del Inca. Historia del Adelantado, Hernando de Soto, Governador, y Capitan General del Reino de la Florida. de otros heroicos caballeros, Españoles, e indios

[xxx]+268+[12] pages with red and black title and index. Small folio (12" x 8 1/4") bound in original leather with gilt lettering and decoration to spine. Third edition.

The first edition of the La Florida was published by Pedro Crasbeeck at Lisbon. A reprint of this edition with emendations was made at Madrid in 1723 under the editorship of Andres Gonzalez Baria Carballido y Zuniga, which was quickly sold out and a third edition was published that same year with out the fold out map.

Born Gómez Suárez de Figueroa, in Cusco, Peru, in 1539, he was the illegitimate son of a Spanish aristocrat and a royal Inca mother. He was born during the early years of the Spanish conquest. His father was Spanish captain and conquistador Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas. His mother was an Inca princess, Palla Chimpu Ocllo, who was baptized after the fall of Cuzco as Isabel Suárez Chimpu Ocllo. She was descended from Inca nobility, a daughter of Túpac Huallpa and a granddaughter of the powerful Inca Tupac Yupanqui. Because he was illegitimate and the ravages of the conquest were underway, the boy was given only his mother's surname. Under the Spanish system of caste that developed, he would have been classified as a criollo (for being of Spanish descent, born in South America) and mestizo (for his mixed parents).Gómez lived with his mother and her Inca family for the first ten years of his life. His first language was Quecha, but he also learned Spanish from his early years. His father took the boy into his household and gave him some education. Suárez de Figueroa received an inheritance when his father died in 1559. The next year, at 21, he decided to travel to Spain. Suárez de Figueroa reached Spain in 1561 while there was still fighting in his native country under the conquest. The Spanish did not achieve their final victory until 1572. He traveled to Montilla, where he met his father's brother, Alonso de Vargas, who acted as the young man's protector and helped him make his way. The younger man soon traveled to Madrid to seek official acknowledgement as his father's son from the Crown, and he was allowed to take the name of Garcilaso de la Vega. Also referred to as "El Inca" or "Inca Garcilaso de la Vega", he received an informal education in Spain. Together with his uncle's support, gaining his father's name helped him in society. He received a first-rate but informal European education in Spain after he moved there at age 21. His works are considered to have great literary value and are not simple historical chronicles. He wrote from an important perspective, as his maternal family were the ruling Inca. He portrays the Inca as benevolent rulers who governed a country where everybody was well-fed and happy before the Spanish came. Having learned first-hand about daily Inca life from his maternal relatives, he was able to convey that in his writings. As an adult, he also gained the perspective to describe accurately the political system of tribute and labor enforced by the Incas from the subsidiary tribes in their empire. La Florida del Inca is based largely on oral testimony from a participant of the expedition de Soto, Captain Gonzalo Silvestre , a Spanish soldier whom he had met in Cuzco, and later in Spain, when he found an ill old man. It is, therefore, an oral source to which the author considers truthful, since his informant had witnessed the events in person. While working on the first version of his Historia, Garcilaso discovered two short chronicles of two other conquerors, Juan Coles and Alonso de Carmona, who were also in Florida. He incorporated into the body of the text the new data obtained, which culminated his book. However, it is not an exaggeration to say that the main source is the one that he collected from Gonzalo Silvestre's testimony. Although the author claims that his work should be considered historical, he is undoubtedly filled the gaps with his own imagination, which more than enriches it, until it becomes a masterpiece of Castilian narrative. Finally, in December of 1604, Garcilaso empowered Domingo de Silva to seek publication of La Florida which appeared the following year in Lisbon, with the title of La Florida del Inca, and dedicated to the Duke of Braganza, published by Pedro Crasbeeck.

Condition:

Spine head chipped away, edge wear with rubbing, leather scuffed, some margins professionally repaired else a good copy.