De Bry - "Title page to Americae Pars Sexta" 1596 - Atahualpa - Inca - Pizarro

Title page "Americae Pars Sexta"

-Original Copperplate Engraving

-Theodore De Bry

-Page 9.5 x 13 inches (23 x 33cm)

-1596 (This image is from the Latin 1st Edition)

-Good condition - some yellow toning to upper right area of page and marks to page. Good margins. 

-Verso blank

This is the original title page from Part 6 of De Bry's famous set of "Grands Voyages". This part contained a description of the Americas by Girolamo Benzoni. A native of Milan, Benzoni spent 15 years (1541-1556) travelling through the Spanish Americas including the West Indies, Central America and South America, seeking his fortune. After a shipwreck on the journey home left him without the money he had accumulated, he had only his experiences to fall back on. These he published in 1565 with a dedication to the Pope. The work was soon re-published in multiple editions, the most well known of which is the finely illustrated series by De Bry, published in 1596.

This title page introduces the sixth part of De Bry's Grands Voyages, which illustrates the Spanish conquest of the Incas. The scenes surrounding the tile panel show Indians mining for gold. Below, the Inca King, Atahualpa, adorned with jewellery and holding a golden sceptre, is being carried on a litter to meet Pizarro at Cajamarca. Also illustrated in the background under the stone arch is the on-going rivalry between the Pizarrists and the Almagrists, and attempts by the Spanish crown to restore order in Peru.