First edition of this important contribution to Chile’s history, translated immediately into Spanish, French, German and later English; there has been some dispute over which title is the real first, which has been terminated by the more recent final attribution of this work –published anonymously- to Molina. It is the first time the plates and large folding map of Chile appear and constitute the basis of the knowledge of the region in the last quarter of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th, before the Independence.
Molina’s work deals with the country´s natives, local costumes, natural history, social arrangements, geography, fauna & flora. The illustration is composed of a large folding map of Chile, a folding plan of the city of Santiago, and 9 full-page and folding plates portraying local fauna –birds and quadrupeds-, women in full urban dresses, native children playing a game, branding of cattle by horsemen, etc.
Molina (1740 – 1829) was a Chilean-born historian, naturalist and Jesuit Priest –where he entered at the age of 15. The fact that he was born in Chili makes him one of the first Chilean historians born in Chili; after the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits, he exiled to Bologna, from where his works where published. The later years of his life were his most productive, having being father of a progressive evolutionary theory, which gained him an investigation from the Church.
Provenance: the collection of Ted Bentinnen.
Palau 174554 (‘Muy raro’); Sabin 12756.
