This is a Latin edition published in Amsterdam of Herrera’s very rare original work published in Madrid in 1601. This collection of voyages is often referred to as an edition of Herrera, which is not strictly correct. It is important for including the first printed official account of Jacob le Maire’s voyage 1615-17 that discovered Cape Horn and a further route to the Pacific Ocean. The maps accompanying the Herrera part were faithfully taken from the earlier work, even to the extent that le Maire’s insular Tierra del Fuego, reported in the same work, is not depicted. Neither for that matter is an insular California as delineated on the title page.

Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas (1559‐1625) was born in the region of Segovia into a noble family. He became the official Spanish historian to King Philip II, III, and IV of Spain and as such had remarkable access to the archives. Indeed, he was responsible for recording the Americas as early as 1596. In 1601 he published the ‘Description de las Indias Occidentales’, one of the most comprehensive histories of the America’s yet published. It was accompanied by 14 maps largely derived from Lopez de Velasco manuscripts. Many of Herrera’s sources have been lost to us over time which makes his work even more valuable.

In 1622 Michiel Colijn re-published the work in Latin, Dutch, and French. This Latin edition was translated by Caspar Barleus (1584-1648) whose three-page Preface dedicates the work to the States General. Following Herrera’s account on ‘Fol. 45’ is the ‘Ephemerides sivé Descriptio Navigationis Australis’ which describes Le Maire’s voyage illustrated with a map. It includes a list of the voyages which had passed through into the Pacific since the time of Magellan. This is followed by the ‘Descriptio Indiae Occidentalis’ by Petro Ordonnez de Cevallos and the ‘Brevis ac succincta Americae, sive Novi Orbis omniumque, quae in eo sunt, regionum hactenus exploratarum descriptio, excerpta è tabulis geographicis’ by Petrus Bertius.

It is difficult to overestimate the impact of Le Maire’s voyage. He set out with Willem Cornelis Schouten with the aim of finding another route to the Spice Islands that did not involve going through the monopolised Straits of Magellan. In rounding Cape Horn, they opened the way for future travellers into the Pacific. They went onto prove that the great southern continent was not connected to South America or New Guinea. The Dutch East India Company seized Le Maire’s vessel and diary following their arrival in the East Indies. It was not until this work that Le Maire’s father was able to get back his son’s journals and publish them.

The title page to the whole is significant as it includes a map of the American continent. “This small map’s chief claim to fame is in being the first map to delineate California as an island. It is a legend on the Henry Briggs map of 1625 that informs us of the probable source of this geographical anomaly. It is a map taken from a Spanish vessel by the Dutch and is assumed to be that accompanying Friar Antonio de la Ascension’s written account of October 1620 intended for the Council of the Indies and the King of Spain. In it he presents his firm belief in California as an island. The map does not survive but Briggs mentions in 1622 having seen in London a Dutch map showing such an island. The publisher of this expanded edition of Herrera’s work, Michiel Colijn, gives no explanation for its use. He even includes a peninsular California in the general map of the same work. The origins of the myth go back further in history.” (Burden). The title also features a series of vignettes of Aztec gods and scenes.

Provenance: Maggs Bros. Ltd. 2001; Juan and Peggy Rada Collection. Borba de Moraes (1958) pp. 337-8; Brown (1980-97) 622/68; Burden (1996) nos. 195-8; Cox (1935-39) 41n; not in Howes (1962); Howgego (2003) L84; Kapp (1971) no. 7; Leighly (1972) pp. 27-31 & pl. 1; McLaughlin & Mayo (1995) p. 126 (not differentiating the de Bry, 1623); Martinic (1999) p. 242, no. 80; Polk (1991); Sabin (1868-1936) 31540; Tooley (1964) pp. 110-11; Wagner (1924) no. 12a; Wagner (1937) pp. 145-6 & no. 291; Wroth (1944) pp. 158-9, no. 55.