CLERCK, Nicolaes de.

A fascinating history of the most important princes (including two from the New World), noblemen and heroes (mostly explorers and navigators) of Christianity, beautifully illustrated with numerous engraved portraits, here in fine impression. The Flemish Nicolaes de Clerck (fl. 1599-25), printer in Delft, specialised in engravings from plates designed and engraved by skilled artists like Jacques de Gheyn the Younger. He also himself produced maps and dozens of portraits of political figures for historical publications ( Drawing , 191). In 1600, he was rewarded financially for having dedicated and presented to the States General the depictions of the genealogy of the illustrious house of Nassau and the feats of war (Klinkert, Information , 62). Each section of Tooneel begins with a textual genealogy, focusing at length on major figures, depicted in handsome portraits. These include Cesare Borgia, Alessandro Farnese, William of Orange, Cosimo I de Medici, Gaston de Foix, Edward Prince of Wales and Philip the Good. The portraits (and biographies) of the Americana section were drawn from Andr é Thevet s famous Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres (1584). These include Montezuma, King of Mexico, Atahualpa, King of Peru, Hern‚àö¬∞n Cort és, Francisco Pizzarro, Ferdinando Magellano and Amerigo Vespucci (this last filed in the section of de Medici, his patrons). Thevet s Les vrais pourtraits was hitherto the closest attempt to replicate a faithful image of New World figures. Montezuma was the only prince whose image Thevet had not managed to acquire, so he used as a source the Aztec Codex Mendoza (c.1529-33); nobody was allowed to look at the king, though Cort és had described him in a letter to Charles V. For Atahualpa, Thevet used an image from his personal collection; no native portrait has survived (Hajovsky, Andr é Thevet , 335). An unexpected Americanum, with fresh illustrations in the Netherlandish style.