Bidspirit auction | Sousa de Castelo Branco, Pedro

Sousa de Castelo Branco, Pedro de — ELEMENTOS DE HISTORIA. Lisbon. At the Officina de Antonio Vicente da Silva. 1767. 5 volumes. [xxiv]-419, [xxvii]-299, 327-[ii], 324-[iv] and 335-[iii] pp. 19.0 cm × 14.0 cm. E. - Fifth printing of the Portuguese translation of the Abbé de Vallemont's Éléments d'histoire, the most enlarged of all, with an explanation of the imperial medals from Julius Caesar to Heraclius. The original work, first published in Paris in 1696, was conceived as an introductory instrument to universal history to be read before particular history: it treats of chronology, geography, heraldry, universal history, the churches of the Old and New Testaments, and the ancient and modern monarchies. The translator, Pedro de Sousa de Castelo Branco, Lord of the Concelho de Guardão, Commendator in the Order of Christ and General of Battle, enriched the Portuguese version with various original additions concerning the history of Portugal, from the foundation of the kingdom to the year 1750, including a description of Portugal divided into three forms of government (ecclesiastical, civil, and military) with their catalogues of Viceroys and Governors, and a description of the coats of arms of Portuguese families. The Abbé Pierre Le Lorrain de Vallemont (Pont-Audemer, 1649–1721) was a French antiquary, numismatist, and man of letters, professor at the Collège du Cardinal-Lemoine in Paris. Innocêncio, the ”patron of Portuguese-language antiquarian booksellers”, records this work at VI, 448. Copy with ex-libris, with contemporary manuscript ownership inscriptions on the title pages, traces of damp and worm damage on certain pages (Vol. I, pp. 339 et seq.; Vol. II, pp. 363 et seq.). Vol. III title page and Vol. V pp. 183, 187, and 203 show repetitions of pp. 293–296 of Vol. II amongst the preliminary leaves of the same volume. Contemporary full leather bindings with gilt tooling on the spines.