BOTERO, Giovanni; BRECQS, Guido de.

A very scarce edition of an important history of world empires and a handsomely illustrated Americanum. Educated at the Jesuit college in Palermo and Rome, Giovanni Botero (1544-1617) was a poet and political theorist. In the 1590s, at the service of Cardinal Borromeo, he wrote his influential ‘Relationi universali’, on world geography and history, travel and discoveries. First published in 1598, the present work is a Latin translation of Part II, by Guido de Brecqs, concerning sovereign princes, their empires and the causes of their power; it incorporates an additional treatise on Italian states. It is accompanied by 5 beautifully engraved maps, recut to size, after those in the ‘Relationi’. America is illustrated in part in the map of Asia, and completely – as ‘America sive India Nova’ – in the world map, which shows New France, the Caribbean and native inhabitants (e.g., ‘anthropophagi’). Like Ortelius’s world map, it also features Terra Australis Incognita. Each section of the text provides information on the geography, natural (and commercial) resources, and history, including explorations (e.g., the circumnavigation of the world by ‘two bold English captains’). Book I focuses on European Empires. Book II discusses the rulers of the Middle East, the Emperor of China, Siam, Narsinga, Calicut, Persia and Japan. Book III, on Africa, provides accounts of the mythical Prester John, the Aethiopian Monomotapa and Seriffus. Book IV describes the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Spain, with its possessions in Europe, Asia and America. This last ‘Novus Orbis’ section focuses on the Caribbean, with mentions of Drake’s arrival in Hispaniola, as well as Cuba and Florida. 

 This copy was in the library – which included 1500 volumes – of the considerable English bibliophile John Morris (c.1580-1658). Whilst travelling extensively on the Continent, he gathered a large collection of European, especially Italian, works, eventually dispersed in 1660-1. ‘Morris usually inscribed his name on titlepages in the language of the book – “John Morris”, “sum Johannis Morris”, “Giovanni Maurizio”, etc.’ (cf. Book Owners Online).