Borba de Moraes, Bibliographia brasiliana : I, pp. 470-471. – Rodrigues, Bibliotheca brasiliense, 1399 – Lestringant (Frank), Le Huguenot et le sauvage (Paris, aux amateurs de livres, 1990).<\/i><\/p>\n
The original Latin edition of Jean de L\u00e9ry\u2019s famous account of his journey to Brazil in 1557.<\/p>\n
Of humble origins, a shoemaker by trade and later an innkeeper, Jean de L\u00e9ry (1536\u20131613) converted to Protestantism in the 1550s. Having received a solid religious education, he was sent to Brazil in 1556 as part of Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon\u2019s expedition aimed at founding a Protestant colony in \u2018France Antarctique\u2019 (in Rio Bay).<\/p>\n
Published nearly twenty years after L\u00e9ry\u2019s return, this compilation of \u201cthings seen\u201d (the manuscript of which was allegedly lost by its author on two occasions and recovered in 1577) forms part of a broader Huguenot discourse strategy, establishing L\u00e9ry as the spokesperson for the Protestant cause. The original French edition of this famous *Histoire d\u2019un voyage fait en la terre du Br\u00e9sil* \u2014 published in 1578, in La Rochelle (for Geneva?), by Antoine Chuppin \u2014 was followed by six editions during the author\u2019s lifetime, up until 1611.<\/p>\n
This original Latin edition is translated \u2014 perhaps by the author himself \u2014 from the third edition published in 1585.<\/p>\n
From the preface onwards, L\u00e9ry takes up the defence of the Protestant missionary project and accuses the Catholic cosmographer Thevet, author of the famous Cosmographie universelle<\/i> published in 1575, of lies and plagiarism; by amplifying his descriptions of Brazil, Thevet was in fact implicitly disparaging the Reformed ministers and the \u2018heretics\u2019 of Villegagnon\u2019s expedition.<\/p>\n
A major text for the history of Protestant missions, this account is also essential for the ethnography of the Tupinamb\u00e1s of Brazil. The author provides first-hand observations on the flora, fauna and, above all, indigenous customs: hospitality (chapters V\u2013VI), body painting (chapter VIII), monsters (chapter X), and polygamy (chapter XVII). The earliest Tupinamb\u00e1 musical notations, a rare and precious resource, are linked to invocations and religious rites (chap. XVI, with pp. 214, 219\u2026 L\u00e9ry also describes warlike and ritual practices, including cannibalism (chap. XIV\u2013XV: \u201cThey do not eat their prisoners out of hunger, but out of vengeance and to show the hatred they bear towards their enemies.\u201d)<\/p>\n
Comparing European violence to that in Brazil, his views are often considered too nuanced for the time, and sparked heated debates in Europe: \u201cI maintain that there are among us cruelties far greater than those one might see among these peoples whom we call barbarians. \u201d<\/p>\n
The work is illustrated with 8 woodcuts, three more than in the original French edition: naked indigenous people (women and men) armed, a battle, final rest in a hammock, a fantastical landscape with hybrid animals\u2026<\/p>\n
Pagination errors (no pages missing) on ff. Miv<\/sub>, Oviii<\/sub>, Sviii<\/sub>. Small angular losses without damage to the text or woodcuts: pp. 211\u2013216, 252. Title page soiled, scraped (traces of annotations), lined; f. *ii, scraped in the lower margin; a few faint foxing spots; underlining on p. 331. Binding rubbed, spine re-bound.<\/p>\n Copy from the collection of the Brazilian writer and historian Rubens Borba Alves de Moraes (1899\u20131986). A professor and researcher, he directed the United Nations Library in New York; also a bibliophile, he is the author\u2014among other works\u2014of the famous Bibliographia brasiliana<\/i> (with his bookplate).<\/p>\n Other previous owners: Mario Pimenta Camargo (bookplate): a collector of Brazilian art, he was director of the S\u00e3o Paulo Museum of Art (Masp) and a board member of the S\u00e3o Paulo Biennial Foundation and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 8vo (172 x 102 mm), 32 un.ll. (the last one blank), 359 pp. numbered 341 (1\u2013223; 206\u2013341), 1 un.p. of errata, 8 un.ll. of index; 1 fold-out woodcut (p. 178), 7 woodcuts in the text (pp. 90, 186, 193, 207 (II), 218, 252 and 266).Brown calf, posterior fawn-coloured ornamental panel with roulette and blind-stamped fleurons, restored gilt spine with raised bands, edges speckled with red (17th-century binding<\/i>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":91034,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[552],"product_tag":[1376,1450,620],"class_list":{"0":"post-91043","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-travel","7":"product_tag-brazil","8":"product_tag-first-edition","9":"product_tag-travel","10":"pa_auteur-lery-jean-de-2","11":"pa_type-de-livre-printed-book","13":"first","14":"instock","15":"shipping-taxable","16":"purchasable","17":"product-type-simple"},"acf":{"artist":" Jean de LERY","chapeau":"The first observations of the Tupinamb\u00e1s of Brazil.\r\nThe Borba de Moraes' copy","adresse_bibliographique":"[Gen\u00e8ve], 1586","book_type":"Printed book","provenance":"","afficher_prix":"oui"},"yoast_head":"\n