Jaume, King of Aragon (1208-1276)
Chronica, o Commentari del Gloriosissim, e Invictissim Rey En Iacme.

Valencia: En Casa de la Biuda Joan Mey Flandro, 1557.

First edition, folio, large paper copy; woodcut arms on title pages; a different armorial woodcut on verso of title; full-length full-page woodcut portrait of the king opposite the verses of dedication; text woodcut showing the battlefield at Valencia during a campaign against the Muslims led by Jaume on folio 42 verso; signature rubbed out on title and repaired neatly; repairs to the paper of the final leaf with colophon and woodcut printer's mark; bound for Spanish bibliophile and collector Pedro Salva y Mallen, with his Biblioteca de Salva emblem on both boards; multi-colored book ticket with the interlaced initials of Heredia on front flyleaf, sold in his Paris sale in 1893 as lot 3204; purchased by the current owner from Quaritch; bound in full textured russet morocco with elaborately gilt-tooled doublures in straight-grained green morocco with dense fanfare-style knotwork designs; gold-toned textured flyleaves; all edges gilt; housed in a custom slipcase; 13 1/4 x 9 1/4 in.

Salva 2984.

"In vivid yet natural language, [...] the captain-king recounts in the first person the epic events of a long reign--most notably the conquests of Mallorca and Valencia, campaigns which the reader lives with the narrator. There is singularly little overstatement or idealization, no rhetorical posturing but much direct speech and dialogue; the king is allowed to emerge as a real person, with his strengths and weaknesses, his cruelties and kindness, and it is this truth to life, this humanity, which gives the autobiographical [Chronica or Libre dels Feyts] its value as a work of literature. " (Quoted from Spain, A Companion to Spanish Studies, ed. P.E. Russell, London, 1973, see page 250.)

From the Ken Rapoport Collection.