Varios discursos politicos … fielmente reimpressos por Joaquim Francisco Monteiro de Campos Coelho e Soiza.

Lisbon, Officina de Antonio Gomes, 1791.. 8°, contemporary speckled calf (minor wear), spine with raised bands in five compartments, gilt fillets and crimson morocco lettering piece in second compartment from head. Small woodcut Portuguese royal arms on title page. Some minor marginal worming, not affecting text, on leaves L5-P2 and last 2 leaves before the "Indice". Overall in very good condition. Armorial bookplate of the Condes de Bomfim; letterpress shelf location tag completed in ink manuscript in upper outer corner of front pastedown endleaf. Older ticket above bookplate with printed name in italic script of José de Cupertino d'Aguiar Ottolini. Twentieth-century (final quarter) printed ticket of Manuel Ferreira, Alfarabista, Porto to right of shelf location tag. (3 ll.), 362 pp., (1 l.). *** Second edition of a work originally published in Évora, 1624. It includes biographies of three of the greatest literary figures of sixteenth-century Portugal - Luis de Camões, João de Barros and Diogo do Couto - plus essays on the Spanish rule of Portugal, the Portuguese language, hunting and Portuguese ecclesiastical vestments.The biography of Camões is one of the first written on that poet: the Canto collection cites only three earlier references to his life, the first two very brief. Many details that were only mentioned in passing in the third source, Pedro Mariz's biographical comments in the 1613 edition of the Lusiadas, are elucidated by Severim de Faria: for instance, Camões' ancestry, his trips to India and the Moluccas, and his final years. Severim de Faria also analyzes the importance of Camões as a poet and puts him into the contemporary cultural context.The biographies of João de Barros and Diogo do Couto are equally fundamental: Boxer used the latter as the primary source on Couto in Three Historians of Portuguese Asia (p. 30, n. 17), and describes the one on Barros as "still the basic biography, on which all later ones are built" (João de Barros p. 153).Severim de Faria (1583-1655) is best known for this work and his Noticias de Portugal, Lisbon 1655. His Relação universal do que succedeu em Portugal … Lisbon 1626, is considered the first periodical published in Portugal, and includes a famous account of the loss and reconquest of Bahia. Severim de Faria was Resende's successor in archeology, and his fame came to rival that of his uncle; he also collected a choice library of rare books. Innocêncio describes Severim de Faria as "um escriptor geralmente respeitavel, e que nas suas obras deixou muito bons subsidios para a historia civil, não menos que para a da litteratura, da lingua, e da critica litteraria em Portugal. A sua dicção e geralmente pura e fulente …."Provenance: José de Cupertino d'Aguiar Ottolini (1778-1863) was Procurador geral da corôa in 1844. Also conselheiro de Estado, and juiz da Relação de Lisboa, he was the father of the first Conde de Ottolini, Manuel Sarmento Ottolini (1840-1898). See Nobreza de Portugal, III, 81. The family was of Italian-Swiss origin.Armorial bookplate ("Condes do Bomfim" appears beneath the arms); see Avelar Duarte, Ex-libris portugueses heráldicos p. 275 (nº 770). The first Conde, José Lucio Travassos Valdez (1787-1862), served in the Peninsular Wars and was in charge of putting down both the rebellion under the Conde de Amarante in 1823 and the Miguelist insurrection in Tras-os-Montes a few years later. He was governor of Madeira and served with Costa Cabral and Rodrigo da Fonseca on the Conselho. When the Maria da Fonte movement broke out he was named commander of the government forces in the south, but having been captured in late 1846 by the Duque de Saldanha, was deported along with his two eldest sons to Angola for the duration of the war. Travassos Valdez's oldest son, José Bento Travassos Valdez, succeeded to the title. The third Conde, José Lucio Travassos Valdez (1841-1926) had been born in Luanda.*** Innocêncio VI, 106-7. Pinto de Mattos p. 240. Bell, Portuguese Literature pp. 215-6. NUC: MiU, GU, DCU-IA, NN, DLC.