With the First State of Kino's Famous Map of Peninsular California (and the first map of Arizona based on actual exploration)
The first obtainable edition of a key early account of California, by the Jesuit Jose María Piccolo, one of the earliest missionaries in Baja California, with Kino's important map of peninsular California.
Jesuit missionary Francisco María Piccolo's report on the discoveries and settlements in Baja California can be found on pages 248-287, of this volume of the Lettres edifiantes. Piccolo's text is dated at Guadalajara, 10 February 1702. The original (separate) 1702 printing of Piccolo's account is excessively rare and was not issued with the map. Present here, as appropriate to the volume, is the first state of the Kino map.
The Informe of Picolo has usually been considered the first printed account of California... the original [1702 edition printed in Mexico City] has always remained a very rare book. - Wagner.
Piccolo was born in Palermo, Sicily. After becoming a Jesuit, he was sent from Spain to Mexico around 1683. In November 1697 he traveled across the Sea of Cortez to Baja California and helped establish the first missions anywhere in the Californias. He made an expedition to the north, visited missions in Sonora in 1707-09 and continued working among the Native Americans in California until his death in 1729.
[Piccolo's] Informe is an important historical work... It was first printed as a 16-page pamphlet in Mexico City in 1702. Some have claimed that this work was printed in Madrid in 1701 [cf. Cowan], and others that it first appeared in Guadalajara in 1702, but these claims are unfounded. Piccolo's Informe was reprinted in the various editions of the Jesuit letters, such as the Lettres edifiantes and the Cartas edificantes... - Hill
Kino's Map and the End of the Myth of Insular California
This volume includes the first state of Father Eusebio Francisco Kino's seminal map, which definitively ended the myth of California as an Island.
By 1700 Kino had reached the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers and realized that he was north of the Gulf of California. Further explorations in 1701 and 1702 down the Gila and Colorado Rivers to the head of the Gulf led him to conclude that Baja was a peninsula... [his map] was the first map of Arizona based on actual exploration - Dereke Hayes.
Eusebio Francisco Kino S.J. (1645-1711) was a Roman Catholic priest who became famous for his exploration of northwestern Mexico and the southwestern United States (primarily northern Sonora and southern Arizona) and for his work to Christianize the indigenous Native American population, including primarily the Sobaipuri and other Upper Piman groups. He proved that California was not an island by leading an overland expedition there from Arizona. He established twenty-four missions and visitas ("country chapels") and was known for his ability to create relationships between indigenous peoples and the religious institutions he represented.
Kino arrived in the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in 1687 to work with the Pima, where he established the first Catholic church in the Sonoran Desert. Kino traveled across Northern Mexico and to present-day California and Arizona. Roads were built to connect previously inaccessible areas. His many expeditions on horseback covered over 50,000 square miles, during which he mapped an area 200 miles long and 250 miles wide. Kino was important in the economic growth of Sonora at the time, teaching the already agricultural indigenous Indian people how to grow European seeds and grains and raise foreign herd animals. Kino's initial mission herd of twenty cattle imported to Pimería Alta grew during his period to 70,000.
Kino was also a writer, authoring books on religion, astronomy, and maps. He built missions extending from the present-day states of Mexican Sonora to Arizona. There he constructed nineteen rancherías (villages), which supplied cattle to new settlements. He was also instrumental in the Jesuits establishment in Baja California in 1697.
In addition to his pastoral activities as a missionary, Eusebio Kino was also an expert astronomer, mathematician, and cartographer, who drew the first accurate maps of Pimería Alta, the Gulf of California and Baja California. His knowledge of maps and ships led him to believe that Mexican Indians could easily access California by sea, a view that was taken with skepticism by Mexico City missionaries.
Kino transmitted information back to Europe which found its way into Heinrich Scherer's maps and Nicolas De Fer's Cette Carte. The first edition of the map was printed in one of the volumes of the Jesuit reports Lettres Edifantes. It was reissued in a number of editions and languages thereafter and is one of the landmark California maps, although a number of commercial cartographers ignored the report for 20-30 years and continued to show California as an island.
In addition to the Kino map, the present volume contains (as part of VI of the Lettres Edifiantes) the following excellent map relating to the Jesuits in the Philippines:
Carte des Nouvelles Philippines découvertes Sous les Auspices de Philippe V Roy d'Espagne.
Rarity
The first state of the Kino map is quite rare in the market.
States
- Signed on the plate, in lower left: "Gravée par Inselin". There is no binder instructions in the upper right corner. Published in early editions of the Lettres édifiantes.
- Still signed by Inselin in the lower left corner. The upper left corner, just inside the neatline, now bears the binder instruction "V. Rec. pag. 248." Published in some examples of the 1724 Fifth Volume of the Second Edition Lettres édifiantes.
- Again, signed by Inselin in the lower left corner. The upper right corner, just inside the neatline, now bears the binder instruction "Tom. 8. Pag. 52." The engraving has been subtly retouched throughout to strengthen the waning image. Here, as published in the 1781 Volume 8 of the Third Edition of the Lettres édifiantes.