Góis, Damião de (1502-1574) and SAGA ZA AB (fl.1520-1540). Fides, religio, moresque Aethiopum sub imperio Pretiosi Ioannis. Leuven: Rutger Rescius, September 1540.

First edition of the "first treatise on Africa by an African" (Spicer, p.93). Damião de Góis was Portugal's foremost humanist in the Age of Exploration. He loved Erasmus and dined with Martin Luther (where he ate apples and hazelnuts, Luther rejected New World foods). In the late 1530s Góis was living in Lisbon where he met Saga Za Ab, the Ethiopian ambassador. Za Ab had accompanied the return of Francisco Álvares's mission to Africa. "Góis urged him to compose a treatise on Ethiopian Christianity to address European ignorance of its traditions. Saga Za Ab wrote the text in Portuguese which Góis translated into Latin for an international audience and published it (under his own name to lend it prestige), along with translations of earlier letters from Ethiopian rulers to the pope and to the king of Portugal ... With these publications [the multiple editions of this title] Ethiopia became increasingly part of the European worldview" (ibid). With three lines in Ge'ez at the end, being an early example of Ge'ez in print. Additionally, Góis includes as an appendix an argument for better treatment of Christians among the Sámi people in Lapland, being an early printed description of the Sámi. See Joaneath Spicer, "Free Men and Women of African Ancestry in Renaissance Europe." In: Revealing the African Presence in Renaissance Europe, Walters Art Museum, 2012; Elizabeth Feist Hirsch, Damião de Gois: The Life and Thought of a Portuguese Humanist, 1502–1574, 1967. STC Flanders 2917808.

Quarto (192 x 140mm). 20th century calf-backed boards. Provenance: contemporary inscription on title-page.