Hystoria de la guerra y presa de Africa

In-folio of (4) ff., 120 ff.
Ivory vellum, remnants of ties, smooth spine, calligraphic title on spine, marbled edges. Old binding.

284 x 205 mm.

Salazar, Pedro de. History of the War and Capture of Africa: with the destruction of the town of Monatzer, and the island of Gozo, and the loss of Tripoli of Barbary: with many other new things.
(Naples, Mattia, 1552).

Very rare first edition of one of the most beautiful books printed in Spanish in Naples in the 16th century.
Oettinger, 4304; Gollner 928; Catalogue P. A. Hanrott, 2298; Adams S-97; Palau, 286709; Toda 4542; Vindel 2684.

A typographical masterpiece.
The illustrations consist of 4 beautiful woodcuts and the text pages are framed by superb woodcut borders.

The first part of the work deals with the events of the African war, while the second part focuses mainly on the Turkish armada and the battle of Tripoli.

The conception and context of the Historia de la guerra y presa de África are therefore fully Neapolitan. Dated 1552, the printing refers back to earlier graphic models: Gothic type in two columns, each text page framed by five woodblocks, one on each side and one in the center, separating the two columns. The two woodcuts at two-thirds of a page, with military scenes, on ff. XXXVIIv and LXXIVv, are of a post-incunabula aesthetic. However, the work clearly reflects a political thought very much of its time, of national monarchism, far from medieval chivalric individualism. As has been the case with modern Neapolitan historiography of the region, that referring to North African territory and its integration first into the Carolingian Empire’s geopolitics, and later into the Hispanic Monarchy, has made substantial progress in Spain.

"The seventy chapters that make up the work are divided into two columns of Gothic characters, outlined and separated by an ornamental border depicting acanthus leaf motifs. This is undoubtedly a prestigious typographical work. The whole is enriched by an illustrative apparatus, including four images depicting North African fortresses and the disposition of the imperial troops, supporting the narrator's descriptions. The main theme of the North African campaign is the pursuit of the corsair Dragut by the Genoese captain Andrea Doria and the viceroys of Naples and Sicily, which took place along the Mediterranean coasts. The attempt to capture him ended successfully on June 15, 1540, the year when, for the first time, Giannettino Doria and Berenguel Dolmos, general of the Sicilian galleys, captured the pirate at the Gulf of Girolata and imprisoned him in Genoa. The military events mostly take place in the coastal region of the Tunisian Sahel, near the Gulf of Hammamet, where after a long battle the imperial navy captures the port bastion of Al-Mahdia (Al-Mahdiyya), which the pirate had occupied. The corsair Dragut, the true protagonist of Salazar's Historia, will nevertheless manage to avoid being captured a second time. The narrative, full of digressions and markedly prolix, is characterized by a richness of data apparently drawn from reading official documents.

The North African battles recounted by Salazar attest to the constant presence on the battlefield of García Álvarez de Toledo and the Sicilian viceroy Juan de Vega, as well as the decisive and crucial roles of the two Italian kingdoms. The Neapolitan historiographical production in Spanish highlights the strategic importance of the capital and shows an intention to promote imperial deeds in the language of the crown; these works do not disdain relaciones de sucesos as materials and information sources, enabling insertion of ideological—religious, in the case of the Christian–Ottoman conflict—messages intended to influence contemporary public opinion" (M. Federici, Corsairs of the Mediterranean and Viceroys of Italy: the "Historia de la guerra y presa de Africa" by Pedro de Salazar (Naples, Mattia Cancer, 1552).

Beautiful copy preserved in its old vellum.