VENEGAS, Miguel (1680-1764).
Noticia de la California, y de su conquista temporal, y espiritual hasta el tiempo presente, sacada de la historia manuscrita, formada en Mexico año de 1739 por el Padre Miguel Venegas .
Three volumes. Madrid: widow of Manuel Fernandez, 1757. First edition.

THE FIRST PRINTED HISTORY OF CALIFORNIA

Quarto (8" x 6"). With 4 folding engraved maps of North America, the Pacific and adjacent land masses, California, and the Gulf of California; the California map with ten pictorial border vignettes; woodcut head- and tail-piece ornaments and decorative initials (the first 2 maps each with a short tear or repair at gutter, tear in second map repaired; small hole to Xx2 in volume II, volume 3 washed and with a few small marginal paper repairs). Bound in contemporary vellum with manuscript title and pen-and-ink ornamentation on spines (endpapers renewed).

Miguel Venegas, a brilliant Mexican-born Jesuit, transferred a longing to serve in the new California missions, thwarted by ill-health, to intense study of the territory's history. In researching what would become a detailed 709-page history of the territories of present-day California, Baja California, southern Arizona and the northern Sonora, Venegas pursued original research, collating primary documents from the extensive Jesuit archives. Completed in August 1739, Venegas's manuscript was unpublished due to its revelation of the weaknesses of Spanish defenses in California, until it was sent to Madrid a decade later for revision and publication, a task assigned to the Jesuit scholar Andrés Marcos Burriel at Toledo.

The map of the Gulf of California, handsomely engraved by Joseph Gonzales to illustrate Konsag's account, is a landmark of California cartography, the first accurate depiction of the Baja peninsula and the regions of the Colorado and Gila rivers. The frontispiece map of California is without a doubt one of the most desired maps of California; its ten border vigettes, showing flora, fauna, and inhabitants of the territory, as well as the martyrdom of the Jesuit Fathers Carranco and Tamaral, are among the few surviving XVIIIc printed images of California. The Noticia further contains valuable information on the discoveries of the Russian and other explorers in the North Pacific. This is an attractive copy of a highly important Western Americanum, the cornerstone of any collection of Californiana.

Barrett 2359; Cowan pp. 657-9; De Backer-Sommervogel VIII, coll. 558-60; Graff 4470; Howes V69; Hill (2004) 1767; Sabin 98843; Howes V 69; JCB I.1601; Streeter sale 2433; Zamorano Eighty 78.