A rare and detailed 16th-century overview of the history of the Orient and the crusades. It consists of two parts. The first contains a geographical description of the far East, a short account of Muslim military history, and a history of the Mongols. As Centeno mentions in the introduction, this part is a translation of La flor des estoires de la terre d'Orient by Hayton of Corycus from 1307, which had never been printed in Spanish before. The second part details the history of the crusades and was written by Centeno himself.
Hayton or Het'um, born in the 1240's, was the nephew of the king of Cilician Armenia. Little is known about his early life, except that he was a general and fought extensively in the East. His work, written by request of Pope Clement V, became popular all over Europe.
La flor des estoires de la terre d'Orient ends with a letter to pope Clement V with suggestions for a crusade to retake Jerusalem and parts of Cicilian Armenia. However, Centeno did not include this in his translation. Instead, he writes that it is important to know the history of the Holy Land before trying to recover it. The second part of the book therefore, is a short but complete account of the crusades, from the death of Godfrey of Bouillon until the defeat of the crusaders in Egypt, including the reign of Baldwin, the fights against the Turks, Emperor Frederick's death, the battle of Arsuf, and the Baron's crusade from 1239-1241. Together with the first part, Centeno's work offers a fascinating and detailed history of the east, especially of the Holy Land, written from multiple perspectives.
With a manuscript owner's inscription ("D. Pedro Romer Conde") and a round stamp on the back of the title-page. The binding shows slight signs of wear. The front pastedown is damaged, because a previous owner removed the bookplate that was mounted there. A few pages have manuscript annotations. Some pages are slightly stained, not affecting the text, with a small tear in the margin of leaf 104. Slightly browned throughout. The page numbers are not always in the right order, as usual. As with all copies of the work, the paper is sometimes so thin, that the ink on the other side of the page shows through. Otherwise in very good condition. Adams, vol. 1, p. 261; Bedrosian, R. Histories of the Tartars, preface, 2004; Palau, Vol. 3, p. 376; cf. Histories of the Tartars, Hayton of Corycus, transl. by Robert Bedrosian, 2004.