Early New World Geography
Owned by Jerónimo Lobo da Gama, Noted 17th-Century Jesuit Missionary and Traveler in Africa
Rare Spanish edition of the first two parts of Giovanni Botero's Delle Relationi Universale, for many decades considered the best geographical text. Originally published in Italian at Rome in 1591-92. The first complete edition published in Venice in 1596. This Spanish edition was translated from the Italian by Diego de Aguiar.
Sections 4-6 in part one are largely devoted to the New World, with a few additional references in part two. Botero includes discoveries in the Pacific and Japan, as well as the Americas, with descriptions of Florida, Mexico, California, Cuba, the Gulf of Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Rio de la Plata, the Strait of Magellan, and the legendary Norumbega in North America. Early European explorers often believed Norumbega was a wealthy, advanced city somewhere in the northeastern part of North America, usually associated with present-day New England. The name appeared on maps and in explorers' accounts, particularly those of Jean Allefonsce (1542) and Samuel de Champlain (1604), who sought evidence of it. However, no such grand city was ever found, and most scholars now understand Norumbega as a mix of misinterpretation, hopeful speculation, and indigenous accounts of settlements in the region.
The second book herein is entirely dedicated to Africa. For his analysis of Asia Botero relies on the most recent information from Pietro Maffei and João de Barros and concludes that "the cities of China are the finest, its political administration the best organized, and its people the most industrious and ingenious in the world."
First Edition with 1599 Title Page Unobtainable and Possibly a Phantom
The present edition is often described as a "re-issue" with a purported cancel title page dated 1603, with sheets of an as yet unrecorded 1599 edition. It is not clear if there ever was an edition with a 1599 title page. The Biblioteca de Castilla y Leon in Valladolid has digitized an edition with a title page dated 1600. That edition lacks maps and has a similar pagination as our 1603 edition - the main difference being the table of contents is bound at the end instead of in the front - otherwise with the same error in numbering of page 193 and the colophon dated 1599. No 1599 or 1600 dated editions are recorded in Alden (European Americana) or Sabin. Going as far back as Obadiah Rich (1832) we read: "the date at the end of the work is 1599... but the title has the date of 1603."
Medina hypothesized that the second part of the book was published first (in 1599), with the first part appearing later (1603), which would explain the apparent discrepancy between the title page and colophon dates. But what of the 1600 edition held in Spain? Perhaps that edition is the true first edition, but it is clearly a superlative rarity and quite impossible to obtain.
A rare few examples of this book have five folding maps (a world map, a map of Europe, Asia, Africa, and one of America), but most, like the example in hand, do not contain maps.
This Spanish edition is rare... Giovanni Botero (1533-1617), one of the greatest economists of the sixteenth century... [his] Relatione Universali, for more than a century considered the best geography in existence. In this work Botero does not limit himself to the description of the different countries of the world, but also relates their history, gives statistics, and makes all kinds of observations. McCulloch, the famous English economist and statistician considers him a precursor of Malthus - Borba de Moraes.
Giovanni Botero (1544–1617), an Italian political thinker and economist, anticipated later theories on population dynamics, including those of Thomas Malthus. In his Della Ragion di Stato (1589) and Delle Cause della Grandezza delle Città (1588), Botero argued that a state's population could grow only insofar as its resources, particularly food supply, could sustain it. He emphasized that prosperity and good governance encouraged population growth, but excessive population without sufficient resources led to decline. While less mathematically rigorous than Malthus, Botero’s insights on the relationship between population, resources, and state stability laid the groundwork for later demographic theories.
Provenance
The present example bears the ownership signature of Jerónimo Lobo (1595-1678), a Portuguese Jesuit missionary renowned for his efforts to convert Ethiopia to Roman Catholicism. Born in Lisbon, Lobo joined the Jesuit Order at age 14 and was ordained a priest in 1621. He embarked on a mission to Ethiopia in 1624 but faced significant challenges, including geopolitical barriers and local resistance. Despite initial successes, the death of Emperor Susenyos I, a Catholic sympathizer, led to the persecution and eventual expulsion of the Jesuits by Emperor Fasilides in 1634. Lobo's perilous journey back to Europe included captivity and ransom. In his later years, he served as rector and provincial of the Jesuits in Goa before returning to Lisbon. Lobo documented his experiences in Ethiopia in a memoir Itinerário, an important historical source on Ethiopian culture and history. A Short Relation of the River Nile (1669) is based on his missionary's travels in Ethiopia from 1625 to 1633. It was translated from the original Portuguese manuscript by Sir Peter Wyche for the Royal Society. Lobo's works have been widely translated and remain significant as historical sourcebooks.
Samuel Johnson drew heavily from Jesuit Jerónimo Lobo’s A Short Relation of the River Nile (translated into English by Peter Wyche in 1669) for Rasselas, particularly in its depiction of Abyssinia. Lobo’s travel account provided Johnson with details on the geography, customs, and court life of Ethiopia, shaping the novel’s setting and its portrayal of the isolated Happy Valley.
Jeronimo Lobo (1593-1678), who traveled to East Africa and Abyssinia for ten years after 1624 and whose account, in Telles' Historia de Ethiopia (Coimbra, 1660), was translated by Samuel Johnson and became thereby the original inspiration of Rasselas - Boies Penrose, Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance, page 284.
Jerónimo Lobo's ownership of Botero's Relaciones Universales del Mundo highlights the intellectual milieu of a Jesuit missionary navigating the early 17th century. Botero's work, a comprehensive treatise on geography, politics, and the global Catholic mission, reflects the broader Jesuit emphasis on understanding and engaging with the world to further their evangelical goals. For Lobo, whose mission to Ethiopia demanded an acute grasp of political dynamics, cultural contexts, and theological disputes, Botero's insights would have been invaluable. The book's connection to Spanish Jesuit Antonio López de Calatayud further aligns it with the transnational nature of Jesuit intellectual and missionary networks. Lobo's ownership of the present volume offers a window into how he, as a missionary-scholar, positioned himself within the global Catholic project and equipped himself to face the theological and political challenges of converting Ethiopia.