History of the Conquest of Mexico. Volume I - III.

488, 480, 524 p. Aus der Bibliothek von Prof. Wolfgang Haase, langjährigem Herausgeber der ANRW und des International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT) / From the library of Prof. Wolfgang Haase, long-time editor of ANRW and the International Journal of the Classical Tradition (IJCT). - Einband jeweils stärker berieben und bestoßen, Seiten insgesamt stark vergilbt, ansonsten aber guter Zustand / Binding in each case more rubbed and bumped, pages overall very yellowed, but otherwise in good condition. - PREFACE. As the Conquest of Mexico has occupied the pens of Solis and of Robertson, two of the ablest historians of their respective nations, it might seem that little could remain at the present day to be gleaned by the historical inquirer. But Robertson’s narrative is necessarily brief, forming only part of a more extended work; and neither the British, nor the Castilian author, was provided with the important materials for relating this event, which have been since assembled by the industry of Spanish scholars. The scholar who led the way in these researches was Don Juan Baptista Munoz, the celebrated historiographer of the Indies, who, by a roya. edict, was allowed free access to the national archives, and to all libraries, public, private, and monastic, in the kingdom and its colonies. The result of his long labors was a vast body of materials, of which unhappily he did not live to reap the benefit himself. His manuscripts were deposited, after his death, in the archives of the Royal Academy of History at Madrid; and that collection was subsequently augmented by the manuscripts of Don Vargas Pon^e, President of the Academy, obtained, like those of Muñoz, from different quarters, but especially from the archives of the Indies at Seville. On my application to the Academy, in 1838, for permission to copy that part of this inestimable collection relating to Mexico and Peru, it was freely acceded to, and an eminent German scholar, one of their own number, was appointed to superintend the collation and transcription of the manuscripts; and this, it may be added, before I had any claim on the courtesy of that respectable body, as one of its associates. This conduct shows the advance of a liberal spirit in the Pen insula since the time of Dr. Robertson, who complains that he was denied admission to the most important public repositories. The favor with which my own application was regarded, however, must chiefly be attributed, to the kind offices of the venerable President of the Academy, Don Martin Fernandez de Navarrete; a scholar whose personal character has secured to him the same high con- sidération at home, which his literary labors have obtained abroad. To this eminent person 1 am under still further obligations, for the free use which he has allowed me to make of his own manuscripts, — the fruits of a life of accumulation, and- the basis of those valuable publications, with which he has at different times illustrated the Spanish colonial history. From these three magnificent collections, the result of half a century’s careful researches, I have obtained a mass of unpublished documents, relating to the Conquest and Settlement of Mexico and of Peru, comprising altogether about eight thousand folio pages. They consist of instructions of the Court, military and private journals, correspondence of the great actors in the scenes, legal instruments, contemporary chronicles, and the like, drawn from all the principal places in the extensive colonial empire of Spain, as well as from the public archives in the Peninsula.