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Second and Third Cortes Letters of 1524

"...a work of bedrock importance to the New World" - William S. Reese.

Textually Complete Examples of Both Letters in a Fine Early-17th-Century Sammelband Containing 2 Related Works

The first Latin editions of Hernan Cortes's 2nd and 3rd letters. This is the first textually complete set of the two letters to appear on the market in thirty years. The folding map of Tenochtitlan and the Gulf Coast not present, as usual.

The two letters by Cortes, present here in their first Latin editions, stand as "one of the most valuable accounts of all time" (Guillermo Tovar de Teresa). The exciting news of the Spanish conquistador's entry into Mexico and his encounters with Montezuma and the Aztecs in 1519 riveted European readers. While the Second Letter appears on the market periodically, the Third Letter is, for some reason, far rarer, and the appearance of the two together is a superlative presentation. This presentation is the most textually complete of the 2nd and 3rd Letters in Latin; none of Cortes's other letters was printed at Nuremberg.

The Cortes Letters: The Splendid Narrative About the New Spain of the Ocean Sea

Cortes wrote a total of five letters to the Hapsburg Emperor Charles V, describing his exploits in Mexico in 1519-22. In these letters he presented himself as a self-styled independent agent; indeed, Cortes rather brazenly asserted himself by reporting directly to the Emperor. For a classic overview see Justin Windsor's Narrative and Critical History of America, Vol. 2, pages 349-430.

• The First Letter, purportedly written in 1519, and said to be dated 16th day of June, was never published and is now lost. The so-called Primera Relación dated at Vera Cruz on July 10, 1519 and often found in modern translations of the letters, is a summary of events set forth by the municipal council of Vera Cruz and was not written by Cortes. The existence of the First Letter is based on a reference by Cortes himself in the opening lines of his Second Letter, though at least one scholar suggests the wily conqueror never actually sent the missive, an intentional omission motivated by the initially tenuous legal standing of his bold project. A separate publication by Peter Martyr, De nuper sub D. Carolo repertis insulis (Basel, 1521) (Handbook on the Islands Recently Discovered, continuing that noted chronicler's 1516 Decades through the year 1520), and not to be confused with the Martyr extract integral to the Nuremberg 2nd letter, is sometimes called a substitute for the First Letter.
• The Second Letter, dated at Segura de la Frontera (Tlaxcala) on October 30, 1520, was first published in Spanish at Seville in November 1522, by the German printer Jacobo Cromberger, without a map. A French edition, also without a map, was issued at Antwerp in 1522. The first Latin edition (present here) was printed in Nuremberg in 1524, and is sometimes found with a map. An Italian edition translated from the Nuremberg Latin text appeared a few months later in 1524 at Venice. The Italian edition is also sometimes seen with a version of the Cortes Map with text in Italian. Both the Nuremberg and Venice printings of the Cortez map are extraordinary rare. The Second Letter bears a provocative title, which translates as follows:

The Splendid Narrative of Fernando Cortes concerning the New Spain of the Oceanic Sea, Transmitted to the Most Sacred and Invincible, Always August Charles, Emperor of the Romans, King of Spain, &c., in the Year of Our Lord 1520; in which is contained many things worthy of knowledge and admiration about the excellent cities of those provinces, customs of the inhabitants, sacrifices of children, and on the subject of religious persons, above all about the famous city of Temixtitan, which will wondrously please the reader.

The Second Letter stands as a foundation stone of first-hand American discovery and exploration literature, highly esteemed for being in the conqueror's own words - herein translated into Latin. In it Cortes describes the people and places encountered en route to Tenochtitlan, the wars and alliances made on the path to the grand island city, which he herein christens for the first time as New Spain of the Ocean Sea. In recounting his exploits Cortes makes important ethnographic observations while painting a picture of the impressive city of Tenochtitlan, its architecture, institutions, Montezuma's court, and the like. He describes a skirmish with his rival Velazquez, leading to a retreat to Tlaxcala and expulsion from Tenochtitlan. Throughout, Cortes defends his shaky legal position, emphasizing the political and religious gains of his conquests. Establishing New Spain as a distinct administrative region, he introduces the use of "new" to name an American territory by a European nation. Crucially, this letter includes Montezuma’s famous - likely apocryphal - speech to Cortes wherein the Mexica ruler supposedly surrenders his empire to Charles. For a new perspective on the meaning of this speech, which if authentic, may have been mistranslated or misunderstood by Cortes, see Matthew Restall's recent book, When Montezuma Met Cortes (2018).

Noted Yale scholar Rolena Adorno has eloquently described the Second Letter:

The famous second letter is the most spectacular of Cortes's five letters to his emperor, Charles V, because it describes events that include the decision to conquer Mexico, the Spanish march to the Mexica (Aztec) capital of Mexico-Tenochtitlan, Cortes's brillant description of the city, his reception by the Mexica lord Moctezuma, the imprisonment and death of Moctezuma, and the Spaniards' retreat on the fateful night of June 30, 1520 ("la Noche Triste") - Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative (2007), page viii.

• The Third Letter, describing the siege and conquest of Mexico, was also first published in Spanish, appearing four months after the first edition of the Second Letter. A French edition was issued from Antwerp in 1522, including a purported paraphrase of the First Letter, along with the Second Letter. The first Latin edition was issued in 1524 to accompany the Latin edition of the Second Letter issued the same year (both present here). Likewise, an Italian translation was also printed in 1524 to accompany the Venice-printed Italian edition of the Second Letter. 
• The remaining Fourth and Fifth Letters, which were printed later and never issued in Nuremberg, extend the narrative to ongoing aspects of the conquest, including the destruction and rebuilding of the city. The Fifth Letter primarily concerns Cortes's later excursion into Honduras, and did not appear in print until the 19th-century. 

Nuremberg First Latin Editions of Cortes

"[The Nuremberg 2nd and 3rd letters] were doubtless issued together" - Church.

The text of the two Latin edition letters is here notably complete, including the portrait of Pope Clement VII (not found in all copies), and with the 12 leaves of Peter Martyr's De Rebus, et Insulis Noviter Repertis, describing newly discovered islands of the West Indies. The Martyr text is often called an inserted substitute for the lost first Cortes letter, but these 12 leaves are in fact integral to the Nuremberg printing of the 2nd and 3rd letters (cf. Church: "It properly belongs between the Second and Third Letters"). No copy of the Latin edition is complete without these leaves.

The Letters were translated into Latin by Petrus Savorgnanus and printed by Frederic Peypus, a prominent Nuremberg printer known for producing Humanist and theological works. Peter Marty's text, a summary of recent discoveries in America, is included by the publisher under the caption De rebus, et Insulis nouiter Repertis ("On the Matters and Islands Newly Discovered"), and comprises a separately foliated section of 12 leaves, herein following the 2nd letter.

The Second and Third Letters represent the most important account of Cortes's exploits, fully displaying the "verve and piquancy for which he is remembered" (Kenneth Nebenzahl).

Boies Penrose further emphasizes the importance of the Second and Third Letters:

The conquest of Mexico gave rise to a remarkable series of official reports...Cortes' Letters were five in number. The first, which presumably described the campaign up to the departure from Vera Cruz, has been completely lost...It's loss is more than compensated for by the survival of the others, particularly of the Second and Third Letters, whose dignified and forceful simplicity led Prescott to compare them to Caesar's Commentaries. As to their contents, the Second Letter takes the story through the initial occupation of Mexico City, the Noche Triste and the retreat to Tlaxcala; the Third describes the siege and capture of Mexico; the Fourth deals with the pacification of the country; and the Fifth relates to the campaign into Honduras... There is no reason for doubting that these documents were not the composition of Cortes himself; as a youth he had studied at Salamanca, and the straightforward, energetic style suggests the writing of an educated man-of-action - Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, page 295.

The Present Example: Bound in a Beautiful Contemporary Binding with 2 Related Works - Including Ramusio's Map of Tenochtitlan

The Cortes letters are presented here in a beautiful early 17th-century vellum binding, with additional items relating to Cortes's conquest of Mexico. The elegant original ink calligraphic spine title lists the contents of the volume:  "Thom. Porcc[achi] Isulae. / Ioann[es] Batti[sta] Ram[usio] / Ferd. Cort. Narrat[io] N[ova] Hist[oria]"

While we do not know who had these works bound together in the early 1600s, they clearly had a special interest in early accounts of Mexico. The inclusion of the sections from Ramusio, including another map of Tenochtitlan, highlights that focus. The presence of Porcacchi's Isolario (which includes yet another map of Tenochtitlan) and the Ramusio - both works printed in Venice - are reminders of a once-prevalent European idea likening the vanquished Tenochtitlan to an ideal island city akin to a "Great Venice." Such fanciful visions of the New World city evoke visions of utopia. In his introduction to a facsimile edition of another Isolario Umberto Eco reminds us that "countries of Utopia are almost always located on an island." 

The Coat of Arms of Charles V

Aside from the map, one of the prime decorative elements in the Second Letter is the coat of arms of Charles V, printed on the verso of the title page, in fact the illustration takes up the entirety of the page.

The woodcut derives from a coat of arms of Maximilian first published in a Nuremberg edition of the Revelationes sancte Birgitte published by Koberger in 1500 (Schoch, Mende and Scherbaum III.488.A34.2 and 34.3; Hollstein VII.227.283). That woodcut is sometimes considered an autograph work of Albrecht Dürer, though more critical readings have attributed it to his workshop. Schoch, Mende, and Scherbaum have suggested that it should be attributed to the Meister der Celtis-Illustrationen. Later, the 1500 woodcut was closely copied but with the eagle at the top rendered in black. This copy is the one that was modified for Cortes's Second Letter, with the shield at the center removed and replaced with one showing a tower, transforming it into the coat of arms of Charles V.

The Italian Connection & Tenochtitlan as "Great Venice"

After 500 years, new perspectives on the Cortes Letters....  The 16th-century European imagination certainly associated Tenochtitlan with Venice (both were styled "island cities" in 16th-century Isolarios), to an extent that Tenochtitlan was occasionally referred to as the "Great Venice.” A Venice-printed Italian translation of the Nuremberg Cortes letters was issued by B. Vercellensis and G. B. Pederzano in late 1524, but the map issued to accompany the Italian edition of the Cortes Letters is clearly a copy after the Nuremberg map, with captions in Italian.

Venetian fascination with Tenochtitlan extended well into the 16th-century, and is reflected in the Isolarios or island books of the time, including that by Porcacchi, which is bound with the present Cortes letters:

An isolario, or "book of islands," published in 1547, noted a resemblance between Venice and Tenochtitlan, now known as Mexico City. The author of that book, Thomaso Porcacchi da Castiglione, wrote that whereas other cities were founded by men, Tenochtitlan was "another Venice founded by blessed God... by his very holy hand."... Venetian cartographers, travelers, humanists, and diplomats also demonstrated a special interest in Tenochtitlan. - David Y. Kim, Uneasy Reflections: Images of Venice and Tenochtitlan in Benedetto Bordone's Isolario.

The present volume, in a beautiful period early 17th-century binding, includes two additional works, both printed in Venice: a 1605 edition of Porcacci's Isolario and an extract from Ramusio concerning Mexico. The inclusion of these two works with the Cortes Letters adds an additional layer of Venetian interest to the volume at hand.

Manuel Toussaint has pointed out how the Porcacchi map of Tenochtitlan represents a simplification, emphasizing the island aspect of the city, with the Templo Mayor quite isolated. Toussaint suggests that the Pocacchi is not based on the well-known Bordone map of Tenochtitlan.

It is worth noting an obscure and very rare 1522 Augsburg printed pamphlet, which (imperfectly) reported the news of Cortes's exploits in the New World: Newe zeitung. von dem lande. das die Sponier funden haben ym 1521. iare genant Yucatan. Newe zeittung von Prussla. The text of this brief account applies the term "Great Venice" to Tenochtitlan. Mostly fanciful, and based on unknown sources, the Augsburg newsletter predated the publication of the Cortes Letters but had no map. It was illustrated with crude woodcut scenes purporting to depict Tenochtitlan.

The volume contains the following:

• The first Latin edition of Cortes's 2nd and 3rd letters together, textually complete.
• 1605 edition of Tomasso Porcacchi's L'isole piu famose del mondo. . . A later edition of a classic Venetian isolario or Island Book, first published in 1572. Full of engraved maps of "the island world," including a fine engraved map of Tenochtitlan on page 157. According to Manuel Toussaint, this is a finer version of the Bordone version: "On page 157 we find Descrittione delle Gran Citta e Isola Temistitan, under which is a copperplate engraving of a plan of Mexico, inspired by the 2nd Letter of Cortes. The engraving, better made and finer than that in Bordone's Isolario, is oriented to the East, with calzadas de Iztapalapa and Coyoacan on the left; that of Guadalupe to the right, and that of Tacuba at the bottom. Below the map is a text: La Citta e Isola de Temistitan &c. which continues through page 160."
• Giovanni Battista Ramusio: Di Fernando Cortese la Seconda Relatione Della Nuova Spagna [extracted from vol. 3 of the 1606 edition of his:] Delle navigationi et viaggi. First published in 1556. Folios 225-296 plus full-page map of Tenochtitlan and full-page illustration of Templo Mayor.

Summary

With the quincentenary of the Cortes letters upon us, new perspectives abound.

In his Letters to Charles V, Cortés conveyed a sense of wonder and ambition that transcended mere conquest, painting Tenochtitlan as an island city of dreams, evoking a floating utopia upon the lake, its temples and pyramids surpassing Venice, glittering in the sun like visions of a promised land. This moment encapsulated not just the allure of untold riches but also a new horizon of possibilities, reflecting the dual edge of the European encounter with the Americas: a marvel at the sophistication and beauty of what they found, and the foreshadowing of the inexorable tide of conquest and change they were to bring. Cortés's words, steeped in the rhetoric of discovery and destiny, echoed the same blend of aspiration and hubris that would characterize the American dream centuries later, marking the beginning of a complex legacy of exploration and radical transformation.

An opportunity to acquire an iconic Americana rarity, the complete text of the most desirable first Latin editions of Cortes's 2nd and 3rd letters - a cornerstone book for any serious Americana collection.

Rarity

Complete examples of Cortes's 2nd and 3rd letters are quite rare in the market. No example of the two Cortes letters with the map has appeared in RBH since 1985; that set lacked the portrait of Pope Clement VII. And only two examples of the Praeclara (2nd letter alone), with the map, have appeared in the market since 1988.

The present example of the 2nd and 3rd letters has ample margins, with the sheets measuring 11 3/4 x 8 inches, a full inch taller than the Church copy, which is described as 10 3/4 x 7 7/8 inches.