BENZONI, Girolamo (c.1520–not before 1572). Histoire nouvelle du nouveau monde. Translated by Urbain Chauveton. [Geneva:] Eustace Vignon, 1579.

First French edition of Benzoni’s disparaging history of Spain’s conquest of America, with tract on an unsuccessful French attempt to colonize Florida. One of the earliest non-Spanish sources to document Spain’s colonization of the New World, Benzoni’s memoirs were first published in Italian in 1565. They were the result of living 15 years in Central and South America. The present edition is the first vernacular translation. “Its major impact came from Benzoni's vivid descriptions of Spanish cruelty to the native populations, which contributed to the dissemination of ‘La Leyenda Negra’ (the Black Legend). As much as the Protestants admired his book, the Spanish reviled it as propaganda” (Oxford Companion to World Exploration).
The text is followed by a short history of the Canary Islands and by a tract on Jean Ribaut’s unsuccessful 1565 attempt to colonize Florida for France and the resulting massacre at Matanzas Inlet. Adams B 689; Sabin 4795.

Octavo (172 × 104mm). Woodcut anchor printer’s device on title-page, and on Florida tract title-page (repaired wormholes in first quire, neat repairs at head of quire X, occasional light stains). Contemporary vellum (rebacked). Provenance: “P.L.” (inscription dated 1949) – Antonio Bonchristiano (bookplate).