First Published Description of Amazon Region at Auction for First Time in a Century

Nuevo descubrimiento del gran rio de las Amazonas (estimate: €80,000 - €120,000) and Hypnerotomachia poliphili (estimate: €30,000 - €50,000) lead The Classics sale at Bonhams in Paris on April 8.

Christóbal de Acuña's Nuevo descubrimiento is the first published description of the region and its people. No copies have been traced at auction or in catalogues since the 1920s. There are still some copies in important libraries, but the last example to come onto the market was in a 1914 catalogue.

Born in Burgos, Cristóbal Diatristán de Acuña (1597–c.1676) was admitted a Jesuit at the age of 15. In the 1620s he was sent on mission work to Peru and Chile, and became rector of the college of Cuenca, situated in modern day Ecuador. During that period Spain was becoming increasingly fearful that Portugal would seek to take control of the important Viceroyalty of Peru, despite the 1494 treaty which divided the continent between the two powers, and encouraged by the explorations of Pedro de Teixeira, who had sailed up the Amazon in 1638. So, the following year Acuña was appointed to accompany Teixeira in the latter's second exploration of the Amazon, both to make geographical, ethnographical and scientific observations on behalf of the Spanish authorities, and to keep a close watch on Teixeira's movements.

During the ten-month journey, Acuña documented the customs, languages, trading practices and conflicts of more than 150 indigenous peoples, and managed to persuade Teixeira to stop the Portuguese from taking Indians as slaves. His many scientific reports included the first recorded description of the electric eel. He referred to the Amazon itself as "the largest and most celebrated river in the world. The river is full of fish, the forests with game, the air with birds, the trees are covered with fruit...”
 
Arriving back at Belém and having written to the King to urge him to take control of the region and stop the Indian wars, Acuña set about writing up his observations whilst waiting for a passage back to Spain. By the time of his return in 1640, Portugal had just begun the revolt against Spain, and Phillip IV is thought to have tried to suppress Acuña's account in case it revealed key information to the Portuguese. Nonetheless the book was published in 1641, although not translated until 1682 (into French, and from that into English in 1698).

Hypnerotomachia poliphili by Francesco Colonna is a significant document of the Renaissance rediscovery of classical antiquity, produced by the important Venetian publisher Aldus Manutius (ca. 1450–1515). A specialist in the publication of Greek texts, Aldus was also famous for developing new formats, such as the small, handheld book, and new typefaces, such as the italic, the descendants of which are still in use today. 

The typeface used in Hypnerotomachia Poliphili, based on ancient Roman inscriptions, was created by Aldus' type designer Francesco Griffo of Bologna especially for this book. Its elegant illustrations reveal a careful study of ancient art as well as an interest in the new science of one-point linear perspective. The beauty of these anonymous woodcuts has led scholars, through the years, to associate their design with such famous artists as Andrea Mantegna, Gentile Bellini, or the young Raphael.