Historia da America Portugueza, desde o anno de mil e quinhentos Ö. by PITTA, Sebasti„o da Rocha

Lisboa Occidental, Joseph Antonio da Sylva, 1730.. FIRST EDITION. Folio (31 x 21.5 cm.), contemporary speckled calf (somewhat rubbed, wear to corners; small piece missing at top of spine; short cracks to joints), spine richly gilt in seven compartments, green leather lettering-piece (faded), gilt letter, text-block edges sprinkled blue-green. Title in red and black. Large woodcut initial and woodcut headpiece on recto of leaf following title-page. Another woodcut initial and woodcut headpiece on p. 1; yet others on p. 597. Numerous typographical headpieces. Numerous sidenotes. Internally very fine; overall in very good to fine condition. Booklabel of C.H. Soltau. From the collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (inscribed "MHC"). (13 ll.), 716 pp. A blank leaf found in a very few copies between the preliminaries and the main text is not present. *** FIRST EDITION of the first general history of Brazil to be published. Burns describes Rocha Pitta as "one of the foremost eighteenth-century historians" (Perspectives on Brazilian History p. 16), even though Rocha Pitta is often condemned for his florid and ornate language, and for not using primary sources. Southey's harsh assessment has been widely quoted: "The only general history of Brazil is Ö a meagre and inaccurate work, which has been accounted valuable merely because there was no other" (Preface to the History of Brazil, London 1810-19). On the other hand, Southey testified to the importance of Rocha Pitta's Historia by numerous citations of it throughout his own work. And while Southey rejected Rocha Pitta's methodology, the Instituto HistÛrico e Geogr·fico (established 1839) respected and sometimes adhered to it. The Historia is an important source on the history of Minas Geraes (where gold, diamonds and emeralds were all discovered during his lifetime), on the "Guerra dos Emboabas" of 1708-1711, between Paulistas and recent immigrants from Portugal and coastal Brazil, and on the "Guerra dos Macates," 1709-1711, between the sugar-planters in Olinda and the new bourgeoisie in Recife.The second edition of the Historia did not appear until 1878, at Bahia; a third appeared in Lisbon, 1880.Rocha Pitta (1660-1738), a native of Bahia, traveled to Coimbra to take his degree, then spent most of the rest of his life on his family's plantation in Brazil.Provenance: Sir Thomas Phillipps, 1st Baronet (1792-1872) was an English antiquary and book collector who amassed the largest collection of manuscript material in the 19th century, due to his severe condition of bibliomania. He was an illegitimate son of a textile manufacturer and inherited a substantial estate, which he spent almost entirely on vellum manuscripts. When out of funds, he borrowed heavily to buy manuscripts, thereby putting his family deep into debt. Phillipps began collecting while still at Rugby and continued at Oxford. Eventually he acquired some 40,000 printed books and 60,000 manuscripts - arguably the largest collection a single individual has created - and coined the term "vello-maniac" to describe his obsession. A.N.L. Munby notes that he spent perhaps between two hundred thousand and a quarter of a million pounds (four or five thousand pounds a year), purchasing materials at the rate of forty or fifty a week. He was an assiduous cataloguer who in 1822 established the Middle Hill Press (named after his country seat at Broadway, Worcestershire) not only to record his book holdings, but to publish his findings in English topography and genealogy. The dispersal of his collection took more than a hundred years. A. N. L. Munby's five-volume history of the collection and its dispersal, Phillipps Studies, was published between 1951 and 1960.*** Borba de Moraes (1983) II, 678; PerÌodo colonial p. 290. Alden and Landis 730/211. Sacramento Blake VII, 214-5. Mindlin, Highlights 194. InnocÍncio VII, 222, 462; XIX, 191, 355. Pinto de Mattos (1970) p. 540. Holmes, Raest Books in the Oliveira Lima Collection 130. JCB, Portuguese and Brazilian Books 730/2. Sch‰ffer, Portuguese Exploration to the West and the Formation of Brazil 75. Sabin 72300. Bosch 179. Rodrigues 2112. JCB II, i, 133. JFB (1994) R340. Welsh 3422. Palha 4266. Lilly Library, Brazil 42. Lord Stuart d'Rothesay 4064: sold for £2/15 in 1855. Sousa Guimar„es 1755: sold for 10$000 in 1869. Azevedo-Samod„es 2843. Ameal 2024. NUC: WU, DLC, RPJCB, NN, MiU-C, InU.