Girolamo Benzoni – författare

The History of the New World is an abridged, unique English translation of sixteenth-century Italian merchant Girolamo Benzoni’s popular account of his adventures in the Americas and the Spanish colonies.First published in Venice in 1565, Benzoni’s book was an immediate best seller and available in at least five languages before the end of the century. It spanned the years 1541–56, providing detailed descriptions of native flora and fauna, exciting narration of harrowing exploits, and a surprisingly critical perspective on the expanding Spanish Empire’s methods of conquest and governance, in which Benzoni highlighted the struggles of indigenous peoples. This edition follows the three-book structure of the original account but focuses on Benzoni’s own experiences, omitting episodes to which he was not a witness and excising repetition and hyperbolic hearsay.The first English-language version published since 1847, this volume includes an informative introduction and annotations that situate Benzoni and his fascinating writings in the larger context of Spanish colonial conquest. Perfect for classroom use, this is a lively, vivid firsthand account of the adventure and wonder of the New World.

The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This volume, published in 1857, contains Girolamo Benzoni's History of the New World, originally published in Venice in 1565. The book is not only a history of the New World since Columbus' discovery but an account of what Benzoni himself saw, when 'being like many others anxious to see the world, and hearing of those countries of the Indians, recently found, called by everybody the New World, I determined to go there'. It includes severe criticism of the Spanish colonists' treatment of the indigenous inhabitants.