Beschreibung:

Les singularitez de la France Antarctique, autrement nommée Amerique: & de plusieurs Terres & Isles decouvertes de nostre temps.
Paris: chez heritiers de Maurice de la Porte, 1558. 4to (215 x 152 mm.) 176 ff. Title woodcut coat of arms of Cardinal de Sens on title, 11 full-page and 30 finely executed woodcuts in text after the school of Jean Cousin Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon including the famous illustrations of a cigar and another of a buffalo. 19th century crushed red morocco, gilt, by Fontaine, gilt dentelles, gilt edges Condition : very occasional light marginal staining. Acquisition : purchased from Librairie Thomas-Scheler (1996), $47,500. the scarce first edition, second issue, of this key ethnography of the new world . Only the date on the title changed from the extremely rare 1557 edition (in fact, this edition was long thought to be the first). a primary work on both brazil and the tobacco history , it also contains the second French account of Canada following Cartier's of 1545. Thevet, a Franciscian friar, accompanied the Villegagnon expedition to Brazil in 1555, its purpose to found a French colony. He gives an interesting account of native customs and beliefs, flora and fauna, including a description of syphilis and its cure through a decoction of bark. The woodcuts depict many native plants and Indian customs (a woodcut of a native smoking a cigar is on ll. 101) including a tobacco use in Canada and a native making a fire by revolving a stick in a log. Also described in some detail are other areas of South America continent including the rich mines at Potosi in Peru. He includes an account of Florida and then Canada, an account of which Thevet apparently had from Cartier himself (Stevens remarked that he knew many of the navigators of the age personally, though some scholars believe him to have visited New France himself). the illustrations are among the earliest of the new world and include a striking cut of the buffalo In their execution the woodcuts can be seen to have influenced the later chroniclers such as de Bry, and in fact Thevet provided de Bry's works with some of their more gruesome images (such as depictions of human sacrifice and cannibalism). Here the cuts are present in fine, dark impressions and feature potatoes, parrots, pineapples, hammocks and other curiousities of the New World. Of particular note are chapters 75-81 relating to Canada. Thevet describes the Indians of northern North America and includes a discussion of the "Baccalos." On the verso of leaf 147 is the famous woodcut of the buffalo. Only a single copy of the first issue, the Siebert copy, has appeared at auction in 30 years, and of this, the second issue, only 3 copies have appeared at auction in the last 30 years. Borba de Moraes II, p. 858; Church 109; Alden-Landis 558/40; Sabin 94339; Arents 8; Brun p. 301.