Historiarum Indicarum libri XVI. Selectarum, item, ex India epistolarum libri IV.
by Maffei, G.P.
2 parts in 1 volume
Antwerp, Nutius ; 1605
Maffei's great history of India.
Early 17th-century edition of a classic work on "the Indies", including both the West and East Indies, considered the best (Sabin) and the most complete (Borba de Moraes) of the many Latin editions.
Based on primary material, it still remains a valuable account today.
The work is divided into 16 books.
Most of it deals with Portuguese conquests and the Jesuit stations in India, the East Indies, and regions around the Arabian Sea to about 1557.
The first 5 books appear to follow rather closely the model of Barros.
Book VI, dealing with China and book XII, which is mainly concerned with Japan, are heavily indebted to Valignano's account of those countries.
The second part includes a selection of Jesuit letters written from the Indies and translated by Maffei.
36 lvs (72 pp), 478 pages; 401 pp., 3 lvs.
Size 4.5 by 7"
Original blind tooled pigskin over wooden boards, with 2 intact clasps. Manuscript title to the spine.
De Backer-S. V, 298, 3. Cordier, Bibl. japonica, 64. Old Japan cat. 916. Sabin 43773 (best Latin edition).
Minor toning, binding tight.
Ex-library
Text in Latin

Giovanni Pietro Maffei (1533–1603), also anglicized as John Peter Maffei, was an Italian Jesuit and author.
He wrote a life of Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus, and also wrote about the activities of the Society in the Orient.
Giovanni Pietro Maffei was born at Bergamo about 1536;
he was for a time professor at Genoa, became in 1564 secretary of the government at that place, and in 1565 joined the Jesuits, among whom he gained a great reputation.
Brought to the notice of cardinal Henry, of Portugal, he was called to Lisbon.
He died in Tivoli in 1603.
Maffei wrote De vita et moribus Ignatii Loiolae (Romae 1585):
— Historiarum Indicarum libri XVI (Florentiae, 1589; often reprinted):
— Vite di XVII confessori di Cristo (Roma, 1601).
At the request of Gregory XIII he wrote a history of the reign of that pope, which remained in MS. until 1743, when it was published at Rome by Carlo Coquelines.
A History of India, written by request of cardinal Henry, was published without Maffei's name, though he was its author.
His collected works, accompanied by a biographical sketch, were published under the style Io. Petri Maffeii Bergomatis e Societate Iesu opera omnia Latine scripta, nunc primum in unum corpus collecta (Verona, 1747, 2 vols. 4to).



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