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2 volumes. [xxxvi]+540+[15 index] pages with title in red and black, frontispiece and ten additional plates, one folding map and index; xxiii+373+[iv] pages with title in red and black, five plates with one folding and two folding maps. Royal octavo (9 3/4" x 7 1/2") bound in contemporary calf with six raised spine bands with black and red labels in three compartment lettered in gilt, half titles in both volumes. (Palau 85403; Sabin 98752). Provence The Explorers Club Collection. This French translation of Vega is noted for its fine plates after Picart and includes maps of the Mississippi region with Hennepin's Discovery of a Country greater than Eyurope, Florida and northern New Spain, later Texas. This two volume set contains two of his most famous works. In volume one the Comentarios Reales de los Incas (part 1: 1609; part 2, the Historia General del Peru was published posthumously in 1617). In volume two La Florida del Inca was published in Lisbon (1605). Garcilaso de la Vega, the "Inca," was born Gomez Suarez de Figueroa in Cuzco on April 12th, 1539. His father was the prominent conquistador captain Sebastian Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas. His mother was Isabel Suarez Chimpu Ocllo, niece of Inca Huaina Capac and concubine to the Spanish captain. Her status as Inca princess and mother of his first-born son did not prevent Sebastian Garcilaso from later marrying a well-born Spanish woman (dona Luisa Martel, who was only four years older than Gomez) and marrying Isabel off to a commoner (Juan del Pedroche). Their son was thus one of the first Peruvian mestizos, and both sides of the family took care to ensure that he was exposed to the traditions of their respective cultures. He learned first Quechua and then Spanish before embarking on an elementary study of Latin in Cuzco. The first volume of this history recounts the origins and rise of the Inca empire, using accounts sent by native friends in Peru as well as Garcilaso's own childhood memories which were filled with stories handed down by Inca relatives. Again, the overall impression conveyed by the work is that the Incas ruled their realm wisely and well, on the classical model of pagan Rome. Their only real flaw was their unwitting idolatry, and Garcilaso lauded Spanish attempts at proselytization. His message, however, was clear: the Incas were a noble people deserving to be treated with respect and perhaps allowed a role in the governance of their own territories. With the publication of the Florida, Garcilaso's attention returned to the New World. For years he had collaborated with Gonzalo Silvestre, a survivor of de Soto's expedition to what are now the southeastern United States, to give an epic account of that voyage. Garcilaso's narrative used classical allusions to at once make the conquistadors into heroic figures and depict the Indians as noble pagans analogous to the ancient Romans and Greeks. The Explorers Club is an American-based international multidisciplinary professional society with the goal of promoting scientific exploration and field study. The club was founded in New York City, and has served as a meeting point for explorers and scientists worldwide. In 1904, a group of men active in exploration met at the request of Henry Collins Walsh, to form an organization to unite explorers in the bonds of good fellowship and to promote the work of exploration by every means in its power. Among these men were Adolphus Greely, Donaldson Smith, Henry Collins Walsh, Carl Lumholtz, Marshall Saville, Frederick Dellenbaugh, and David Brainard. After several further informal meetings, The Explorers Club was incorporated on October 25, 1905. Women were first admitted in 1981, with a class including Sylvia Earle and Kathryn Sullivan. Condition: Explorers Club book plate to front pastedowns, bind-stamps to titles, maps and occasionally elsewhere, in numerals to first leaf of text, faint damp stain to upper margin of volume two, some wear to joints and rubbing to extrem. Seller Inventory # CA1113
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