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“German” Europe in the early 16th century, and Hispaniola in America

PIRCKHEIMER, Willibald.
Germaniae ex variis scriptoribus perbrevis explicatio.
Augsburg, Heinrich Steiner, 1530. Small 8vo (15.5 x 10.5 cm). Title in a wide woodcut ornamented border, 2 woodcut historiated initials. Set in an Aldine-style italic with a word of Greek. Modern brown shell-marbled boards. [69], [3 blank] pp.
€ 3,750
Rare second(?) edition (published in the same year as the first) of a Latin treatise on the geography of "Germany", interpreted very broadly to include the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland and some regions in eastern Europe, where "Germans" lived or had lived. The last three pages discuss recent Spanish discoveries in America (suggesting some may have been discovered by the Carthaginians but kept secret), including the island Hispaniola (noting the observation of an eclipse there in 1494, in fact by Columbus) off the continent that Pickheimer says the Spanish call "Sanctae Marthae". He also mentions Mexico, Temistitan (Mexico City) and not far from them the island[!] Yucatan and other newly discovered islands ("à qua etiam non longe remota est insula Iucatan cum aliis nuper repertus").
The title-page is tattered and restored, very slightly affecting the right edge of the border, but otherwise in good condition and nearly untrimmed, preserving most point holes and some deckles. An important early geographic treatise as well as an early Americanum. Alden & Landis 530/33 (4 copies); USTC 659536 (5 copies); VD16, P2904 (same 5 copies); Sabin 63017; for Pirckheimer: Contemporaries of Erasmus III, pp. 90-94.
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