Dissertacion historica, y geographica sobre el Meridiano de Demarcacion entre los Dominios de España, y Portugal, y los parages por donde passa en la America Meridional, conforme à los tratados, y derechos de cada estado, ylas mas seguras, y modernas observaciones. Por ....

Madrid, en la Imprenta de Antonio Marin, 1749.. FIRST EDITION. 8°, contemporary stiff vellum, flat spine with citron morocco lettering piece, title in gilt, text block edges rouged, blue silk ribbon place marker. Small Maltese cross at top of title page. Woodcut headpiece and initial on p. 3. Crisp and clean; in fine condition. 175 pp. *** FIRST EDITION. The Dissertacion concerns the much debated question of the boundaries between Spanish and Portuguese possessions in South America. The authors discuss Pope Alexander VI's papal bull of 1493 and the Treaty of Tordesillas, 1494, which set the original limits of expansion, and then discuss more recent negotiations that had resulted in a provisional treaty. (The boundaries were definitively set in 1750, by the Treaty of Madrid.) The final part of the work is concerned with early discoveries in South America, and includes a long section devoted to the discovery and occupation of the Amazon Basin by the Portuguese (pp. 119-73).Jorge Juan (1713-1773) and Antonio Ulloa (1716-1795), Spanish naval officers with diverse political, scientific and even book collecting interests, are best known for their Relacion historica del viage a la America Meridional .... Madrid, 1748, the most widely read account of the expedition dispatched under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences to measure an arc of the meridian at the Equator.*** Borba de Moraes (1983) I, 430-1. Alden & Landis 749/153. Palau 125483. Medina, BHA 3501: giving the collation as (1 l.), 43-174 pp., (1 blank l.); "43" is probably a typographical error for "3". Sabin 36802. René-Moreno 1266. JFB (1994) J148. JCB II, i, 910. Not in Salvá or Heredia. On the authors, see Leonard's introduction to the abridged English translation, A Voyage to South America (1964). Rebiun locates a copy at Universidad de Granada. Not located in CCPBE. Jisc locates a copy at Oxford University.