Beschreibung:

PERU AND MEXICO. (2). ACOSTA, JOSEPH DE. Historia natural y moral de las Indias, en que se tratan las cosas notables del cielo, elementos, metales, plantas y animales de ellas; y los ritos, ceremonias, leyes, gobierno y guerras de los Indios... Dala a luz en esta sexta edicion. I-II. Madrid (por Pantaleon Aznar) 1792. 8:o. (11). 1-306 (correctly 310, lacks last blank leaf); (12), 1-252 pp. Contemporary brown mottled calf, somewhat worn, gilt spines, vol. I lacking spine label, red edges. Signature on first endpaper. 2 volumes. José de Acosta (1539 or 1540-1600), sixteenth-century Spanish Jesuit missionary and naturalist in Latin America. It is chiefly the Historia natural y moral, first published in 1590, that has established the reputation of Acosta, as this was one of the very first detailed and realistic descriptions of the New World. In a form more concise than that employed by his predecessors, Francisco Lopez de Gómara and Oviedo, he treated the natural and philosophic history of the New World from a broader point of view. In it, more than a century before other Europeans learned of the Bering Strait, Acosta hypothesized that Latin America's indigenous peoples had migrated from Asia. He also divided them into three barbarian categories. The Historia also described Inca and Aztec customs and history, as well as other information such as winds and tides, lakes, rivers, plants, animals, and mineral resources in the New World. (Wikipedia).