Africa Portuguesa

Item Details

Lisbon, Antonio Craesbeeck de Mello, 1681, Vellum

First Edition, Very Good

Contains  accounts of Portuguese presence along the western and eastern coasts of Africa, including Angola, Congo, Mozambique, and the kingdom of Ethiopia. It chronicles missionary activity, colonial administration, battles with local rulers, and maritime engagements with rival European powers, especially the Dutch.

Folio in sixes. [iii], Title, Dedication and License; 207pp. Tabla 11pp. (Pages misnumbered, going from 86 to 89 but with continuous text). Text in Spanish. Contemporary vellum bound stiff wraps. Professionally rebound in original cover with some restoration to the first two sheets. Housed in custom cover and slipcase. A few small closed tears to page edges. Vellum cover a little age wrinkled with one tear to top of spine.

This account of the Portuguese possessions in Africa is a compilation, the scope of the volume extending from the year 495 to 1520. It gives a narrative of various expeditions along the coasts, and deals principally with North African Territories. (Mendelssohn Vol. 1 p.533).

Manuel de Faria y Sousa was a Portuguese historian and poet who frequently wrote in Spanish. The tone of some of his work which excited the suspicion of the inquisitors, caused his temporary incarceration, and led to the permanent loss of his official salary. In spite of the enthusiasm which is said to have prescribed to him the daily task of twelve folio pages, death overtook him before he had completed his greatest enterprise, a history of the Portuguese in all parts of the world. Several portions of the work appeared at Lisbon after his death, under the editorship of Captain Faria e Sousa : including África Portugueza (1681).