The first Latin edition of one of the monuments of early American discovery and exploration, complete with the first printed appearance of Cortés’s invariably missing map of Tenochtitlán and the Gulf of Mexico: the “first accurate delineation of the Gulf of Mexico and the first to use the name Florida” (Burden); and the first map to show any part of the Mississippi River, here called “Rio del Spiritusancto”. The map accompanies Cortés’s second letter to Charles V, the first being lost, describing his conquests in the Americas. It was first published in Spanish in 1522, without a map, followed by a Latin translation by Pietro Savorgnano, published in Nuremberg in 1524, with a map, as here.
Hernando Cortés’s expedition “ranks as one of the most remarkable chapters in American history” (Taliaferro): a small expedition of mercenary adventurers toppled a great empire and secured unimagined wealth for the Spanish crown, thereby fulfilling impatient European expectations that America prove a good investment. For his leadership, vision and cunning, Cortés has been called nothing less than “the greatest of all of post-Columbian figures in early American history” (Worth).
Cortés composed five “relations”, or accounts of his exploits by letter. The second, included here, which he signed from Tlaxcala on October 30th, 1520, contains a very dramatic and gripping narrative of the Spaniards’ capture of the Aztec emperor Montezuma; their forced retreat from the occupied capital; and the famous “noche triste” (sorrowful night), during which the Spanish army suffered considerable losses, and Cortés was wounded several times.
“Cortés narrates the wars and alliances that took place on the way to Tenochtitlan, and at the same time provides vivid descriptions of the land and peoples he encounters. Cortés’s ethnographic interest culminates in his splendid description of the great city, its buildings, institutions and the court of its ruler, Montezuma. He frequently compared the Aztec achievements to those of Christian civilization… Throughout the letter Cortés vindicated his shaky legal position by skillfully laying out the political and legal benefits that might derive from the enterprise he commanded. Cortés no doubt had a good grasp of the political consequences of his enterprise. Fully aware that the territories he intended to subdue were a radically new geographical entity, he created a distinct administrative province for them called New Spain. This was the first time the name of a European nation was used with the adjective ‘new’ to name an American territory” ( JCB).
“The map has two parts, the larger is a plan of the Aztec capital portraying it before its destruction by Cortés, with all the buildings, canals and causeways. This is the first printed depiction of an American city. The second is the first accurate delineation of the Gulf of Mexico and the first to use the name ‘Florida’. In his letter Cortés claims that the delineation of the Mexican coast came from Montezuma himself ” (Burden).
If this latter detail is true, then Cortés’s map would be the first printed map to be based partly on Amerindian sources.
Cortés’s map of Mexico City has had a particularly rich afterlife. It was copied by Benedetto Bordone for the second edition of his ‘Isolario’ (1534); another copy appeared in the 1565 edition of Ramusio’s ‘Delle Navigationi’; and it was most widely disseminated in a Braun and Hogenberg bird’s eye view of 1572. It has also been suggested that the Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer was familiar with this map, and that the plan for the ideal city in his fortification treatise of 1527, ‘Etliche underricht, zu Befestigung’, generally considered the most original aspect of that work, was influenced by it - a rare example of the indigenous culture of the Americas influencing the urban fabric of the Old World.
According to Church, Cortés’s first relation, or letter, now lost, is thought to have been written at Veracruz in 1519. It is only known by an extremely rare French paraphrase, from 1522 (Church 48: Huntington & Lilly); and a summary from Peter Martyr, in his ‘De nuper…repertis insulis’ (1521; Alden/Landis 521/1). The Second Letter, first appeared in Spanish in 1522 (Church 47), but without a map (NYPL, JCB, and Huntington); then in Latin in 1524, as here (Huntington, Library of Congress, Lilly, Clements, Newberry, and BL). The third letter describes the seige and capture of Tenochtitlan (Mexico City). A fourth letter, describing the reducción of the country, was published in the sixteenth century, while the fifth (relating to Honduras) remained in manuscript until the nineteenth century.
In some examples of the 1524 edition two leaves of Martyr’s text, ‘De rebus, et Insulis nouiter Repertis’, are appended in lieu of the first letter. Some examples also bear a large woodcut portrait of Pope Clement VII on the verso of the fourth preliminary leaf (a4): “…large cut of Clement VII… sometimes wanting” (Sabin), “The Lenox Library possesses two copies, in one of which this page is blank” (Church). Neither the Martyr text, nor the portrait is present here, perhaps suggesting an earlier issue?

Rarity
Only 2 examples of this issue of the ‘Praeclara’, with the map, have been offered in commerce since 1988; American institutional examples with the map are recorded at: the Huntington; Hesburgh; JCB; Lilly; LoC; Newberry (damaged); NYPL; UVA (Church’s copy); and ZSR at Wakefield.