Author: Argensola, B. L. Lic.
Title: Conquista de las Islas Malucas al Rey Felipe III. N. Sr. Escrita por el capellán de la Magestad de la Emperatriz y Retor de Villa hermosa.
Date and publisher: Madrid. Ediciones de Alonso Martín. 1609.
Description: First edition of one of the first books to deal fully with the Spanish conquest of the Moluccas, the Spice Islands, and of the Philippines, 1564–1572, under the conquistador Miguel López de Legaspi. This famous book deals with those exploits, with the natural history of these islands, the manners and customs of the natives and the voyages through the Straits of Magellan; regarded by Hill as an ‘essential work for the history of Spanish and Portuguese exploration in the East Indies’. Argensolas´ narrative is noted for its breadth of knowledge and over-all grasp of world politics. ‘In his digressions on people and places,’ writes Lach (Asia in the making of Europe, III, pp. 311-12), ‘Argensola´s adds significantly to the stockpile of information on Asia, especially on the Moluccas, Java, Sumatra, and Ceylon. His book also ties together neatly the affairs of Europe with struggles in the overseas areas, for he sees the spice trade in its worldwide ramifications and makes his reader acutely aware of its immediate and potential interest for Japan and China.´
Binding: Modern half-vellum.
Size: 11 x 7.5 inches / 28,5 x 15 cm. An unusually large copy (most copies have the title page trimmed).
Number of pages: 10 + 407 pages.
Conquista de las Islas Molucas (1609) [Rare McPar DS674 .L4 1609], written by Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola, a Spanish historian and poet who took holy orders and was later appointed royal chaplain and historiographer of Aragon.
This particular text was commissioned by the Council of the Indies to commemorate the Spanish recapture of the Moluccan Islands of Ternate and Tidore in 1606. It was very well received upon its initial publication, and continues to be an important source for research into Spanish and Portuguese exploration in the East Indies, the conquest of the Philippines, and the history of the spice trade, especially since Argensola consulted numerous primary sources in the archives of the Indies when writing this work. Our volume is bound in its original brown leather over paper boards, though the spine has been rebacked in brown leather gilt and the endpapers replaced. The text itself is very finely printed, with numerous ornamental head- and tail-pieces and woodcut initials, and an especially fine engraved title page. This page, pictured below, illustrates, within an elaborate architectural border, an allegory of the Spanish conquest of the Moluccas. The amazon queen “Maluca” is depicted seated astride a crocodile, wearing a feather headdress and holding a sword in her left hand while in her right she raises a horn of plenty filled with the fruits of her lands. Her gaze is directed upward to where a rainbow is shown containing the royal crest of Spain, shimmering in the light, signifying, with the word simul, the fact that the sun never sets on the Spanish empire. In the background is an active volcano, of which there are several on these islands, and seashells are strewn before her feet.
