Small folio (269 x 192 mm). Title printed in red and black; engraved frontispiece, 32 engraved plates, one engraved folding plate of the great Temple of Mexico; 2 folding maps. (A few tears to folds of maps with old repairs verso, some minor spotting to a few leaves.) Contemporary vellum, hand-lettered on upper cover, lettering-piece gilt, edges stained red (overall soiling, some light wear). Provenance: J. F. Arriaya (signature upper cover); 5 plates with manuscript notes verso, with some showthrough.

FIRST EDITION of this "important and highly esteemed work, containing the celebrated letters of Cortes to the Emperor Charles V. This edition is illustrated with copious notes and documents, together with facsimiles of the Mexican mode of representing the tributes paid by the different towns in Mexico. These pictures, more complete and colored like the originals are included in Lord Kingsborough's Antiquities of Mexico" (Sabin). "Pages 322-328 contain an account of the voyage of Cortes to the peninsula of California and notices of later expeditions to 1769. The map of Castillo was inserted to illustrate this account, which Lorenzana states was copied from the original in the Archives of the Marquesado, that is, of the Cortes family. Since that time the original has never appeared, so we are still at a loss to know whether Castillo or Lorenzana put the name 'California' on the map" (Wagner, Spanish Southwest 152). Palau 63204; Sabin 16938.