PIMENTA, Nicolao (fl. 16/17th centuries). Cartas que o padre Nicolao Pimenta da Companhia de Iesv Visitador nas partes do Oriente da mesma companhia, escreveo ao Géral della à 26. de Nouembro do ano de 1599. & ao 1. de Dezembro de 1600, nas quaes entre alguas cousas notaveis & curiosas q[ue] conta de diversos reinos, relata o successo da insigne victoria que Andre Furtado de Mendoça alcançou do Cunhale grande perseguidor da Fee & Christiandade da India & cruel inimigo daquelle estado. Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeeck, 1602.

First Portuguese edition of an account of Jesuit missions in India, Burma and Malacca. Nicolau Pimenta was charged with collecting reports from Jesuit missions in India and the East Indies and this is the first Portuguese edition of two of his despatches, which had been printed separately in Rome in 1601 and 1602. “Rich in observations about conditions in India, [it] also includes bits of news about events in the Moluccas and China. Pimenta also reports on the withdrawal of the Jesuits from Cambodia in favor of the Dominicans and Franciscans" (Lach III, p. 369) and on André Furtado de Mendonça’s successful attack on the fleet of the Kunjali Marakkar in present-day Kerala. Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe; Streit, Bibliotheca missionum, V.36.

16mo (130 × 85mm). (Title-page and last page browned.) Modern navy morocco gilt by Lortic fils, turn-ins gilt, all edges gilt (upper joint started). Provenance: José Mindlin, 1914-2010 (bookplate).