GARCILASO DE LA VEGA. The Royal Commentaries of Peru... Illustrated with sculptures. Written originally in Spanish, by the Inca Garcilasso de la Vega, and rendered into English, by Sir Paul Rycaut, Kt. viii, 1019, [9] pp. (pages 23-26 omitted in numbering). With an engraved portrait of the translator and 10 full-page engraved plates. Folio, bound in contemporary English mottled calf, spine gilt, recent red label. London: Miles Flesher for Jacob Tonson, 1688.

First Edition in English. Garcilaso de la Vega's most important work, The Royal Commentaries of Peru, is a valuable source of information about the conquest of Peru and the lives and legends of the Inca.

Garcilaso (1539-1617) was the son of the Spanish conqueror, Sebastian Garcilaso de la Vega y Vargas, who had married an Inca princess named Chimpa Ocllo, the grand-daughter of the great Tupac Yupanqui, the last of the Incas. "The Inca mother taught her son the language of the ancient inhabitants of Peru, and suggested to him the idea of writing a history of these people. For this purpose, Garcilaso travelled over the entire empire of the Incas, got as much information suitable for his purpose as he could gather from both the natives and the new colonists, and consulted the few remaining monuments of that race... As a historian of Peru and its people, Garcilaso enjoyed singular advantages, for his mother, an Inca princess and her relations told him everything concerning their ancestors, omitting nothing, as they considered him one of their race. On the other hand, his father, who was the Governor of Cuzco, was on intimate terms with many of the conquerors, so that from them the historian heard the accounts of their deeds. Garcilaso, therefore, was in a position to get information at first hand from both the natives and their conquerors. His work is of great historic value, as it constitutes practically the only document we possess of the ancient civilization of Peru" ( Catholic Encyclopedia).

The work is arranged in two parts: the first concerns the original Incas, their religions, laws and government, and their reigns and conquests. The second part describes the manner by which the Incan empire was conquered by the Spaniards; it also relates the civil wars between the Piçarrists and the Almagrians. This folio volume contains numerous engravings which suggest admiration for Incan achievements, while condemning the Spanish destruction of Incan civilization. There are artistic renderings of Cuzco, Pizarro's arrival in Peru (which imitates numerous other depictions of initial encounters between Europeans and American natives), a vision of Spanish cruelty during their attack on Cuzco, the death of Atahualpa (while the Spaniards look on, innocently) and more.

This is the first English translation of Garcilaso's Comentarios reales de los Incas (Part 1 of the Spanish original was first printed at Lisbon in 1608 (i.e. 1609); pt. 2 was first printed at Cordova in 1616). "... [Rycaut] had a very slight knowledge of the Spanish language and he did not scruple to make wild guesses at the meaning of sentences, and to omit whole chapters. Thus he only gives fourteen out of the twenty-six chapters in the first book, and sixteen out of the twenty-six in the second" (C.S. Markham's introduction to the First part of the Royal commentaries, 1869-71, v. 1, p. xvi). Of this first English edition, two other issues are known (priority indeterminate): one listing "C. Wilkinson" as publisher, the other "S. Heyrick."

This copy formed part of the notable library of Arthur St. Leger, 1st Viscount of Doneraile and 1st Baron on Kilmayden, descendant of the Anglo-Norman house of St. Leger, and the owner of the fabulous estate at Doneraile Court (County Cork). Doneraile (d. 1727) was an active Freemason; his daughter was discovered witnessing a secret Freemason initiation ceremony in the Doneraile Library (over which her father was preciding). All present decided that the proceedings must remain secret; consequently the young woman herself was immediately initiated as a Freemason, and thus became one of only three female Freemasons in history.

Wing G215. Sabin 98760.