Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2124294 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04-25
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Library Binding
• 544 pages

Customer Reviews

Astonishing, fascinating, compelling
Peter Martyr was an Italian contemporary of Columbus who used his position as Royal Chronicler of Spain to gain access to first-hand eyewitness accounts of Columbus' voyages to the new world, as well as those of the men who followed in Columbus' wake.

Martyr's history of near-contemporary events unfolded over a period of years in a series of accounts which he called "decades". These are written in mostly correct Classical Latin, but his style is quite unlike most Classical writers, since he treats Latin as a living, vernacular language which he writes freely, with a scattering of native words like "taino", "canoe", "carib" and not forgetting "cannibal", throughout. His racy, vivid narration is, as he himself admits, uncorrected or edited. But Martyr was more concerned about establishing his facts than worrying about writing in the manner of Cicero. His independent stance, often highly critical of the Spanish conquistadors, makes him a truly modern historian.

This book, despite its prosaic title, is in fact nothing less than Geoffrey Eatough's magnificent and monumental edition of the First Decade (the so-called "Ocean Decade") in its entirety, plus supplementary material from Martyr's correspondence. Eatough provides a lengthy introduction before presenting Martyr's complete Latin text with his meticulously accurate English translation. These are follwed by a commentary which abounds with textual and historical criticism and facsinating background information.

This is a handsome "library" edition hardback, beautifully presented. The only shame is that Eatough has not yet been able to provide us with similar editions of Martyr's later Decades. Academic publishers take note: someone please commission him to do so!