CIEZA, Pietro (c.1520-1554). La prima parte dell'historie del Peru. Venice: Giordano Ziletti, 1560. [Bound with:] LOPEZ DE GOMARA, Francisco (1511-c.1566). La seconda parte delle historie generali dell'India. Venice: Andrea Arrivabene, 1557.

Two important early works on Peru in Italian. "Cieza de Leon was in the Americas from 1532 to 1552 with the Spanish armies…in his seventeen years of travels in South America, he visited the areas from Panama to the frontiers of Chile. He started writing his history at Popayán in 1541 and finished it in Lima in 1550. The Chronica was divided into four parts; the first part the only one to be published in the sixteenth century. It describes the geography, history, and ethnology of the Viceroyalty of Peru" (Hill). While the other parts would not see print until the 19th-century, the first part went through several editions immediately. The map present here first appeared in Ziletti's 1557 edition; for some time it was thought to have been first published in England. This work is often found bound, as here, with the work of Francisco Lopez de Gomara as a continuation. Ziletti also published an identical issue of this work in the same year. First work: see Hill 297 (first edition), Sabin 13051 (first edition), Burden 20 (smaller version of the map); second work: Sabin 27737.

Octavo (152 x 103mm). First work: folding woodcut map, woodcut printer's device on title and final leaf (light marginal dampstaining, marginal note just shaved on F7, occasional foxing); second work: woodcut on title (some foxing and occasional stains). Older limp vellum (boards showing through at corners and edges, a few stains).