Pedro Cieza de León

Pedro de Cieza de León ( * ca 1520 in Llerena, Spain, † 1554 in Seville, Spain) was a Spanish conquistador, chronicler and historian of Peru. He wrote the Chronica del Perú ( Chronicle of Peru) in three parts, of which the first was published during his lifetime, the other only in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Life and work

Youth and Emigration to America

From Cieza you knew a long time just what he divulged in his own writings; since the discovery of his immigration papers, his will and other sources in the Spanish archives to find his statements today essentially confirmed and extended. Cieza was born 1520 in Villa Llerena / Extremadura in Badajoz. His father owned a store there and came around on trade missions in the country; the Ciezas also were considered " Erasmists " or " humanist ", ie as moderate Catholics; that they should have been conversos ( converted Jews ), can be excluded.

Landsknecht and chronicler

Pedro had not studied, but knew the ancient authors, was a good observer and attentive descriptor. As a child, he had witnessed the arrival of the stolen treasure of the Inca ruler Atahualpa in Seville and authenticated there in 1535 before the notary his departure to Cartagena / Colombia. From there, he moved as a young man and Landsknecht 1539 into the interior, into the Cauca Valley. At the same time he started his journal, which he in his own words has often served as a drum desk and a condor feather as a keel; officially, he started his diary in 1541 in Cartago, New Granada. In 1546 he fell in the battles of the Spaniards to the Inca succession: he accompanied the gray eminence of the king, the prelates Pedro de la Gasca, whose campaigns against the conquistador Gonzalo Pizarro - usurper. 1548 he was appointed to his reportedly " Cronista de las Indias " and moved inland, including in Cusco, further inquiries at an eye-witness and conquistadors; the achievements of the Inca he was doing justice: " In many ways they were superior to us Spaniards far. " In 1550, he finished in Lima 's history of Andean peoples and submitted the manuscript of the local censorship board; here he also included the engagement with the living in Spain Isabel López, whom he married in 1551 after his return to Seville.

Return to Spain, printing of the first part, Death

The couple lived on his return to the Calle de las Armas, today Calle Alfonso XII; Here he prepared his Crónica for printing. 1552, he received the royal imprimatur, while a license protection for 15 years. The work was published in 1553 with illustrations in folio format in an edition of 1,050 copies, the first publishing work in the press of Martín de Montesdoca to Seville. This remained the only one printed edition in Spain until 1862. Flanders in the Spanish Cieza an issue let's pocket-sized print, again with ( shaved ) Illustrations. Probably because of his criticism of the king and the Indies - " many uneducated men without stroke and reputation [ are ] called by his Majesty and the high western India Council in the government" -, his espousal of the bishop of Chiapas, Bartolomé de las Casas, which he used in his last will to the executors, and however its open presentation of the atrocities in the conquest and administration of the country remained his work for three centuries excluded from further publication.

Translations of the first volume appeared in 1554 in Antwerp, since 1555 in Italy ( seven editions in twenty years ). German, French translations missing, a ( poor ) English edition did not appear until around 1700.

Meanwhile Cieza edited the second and third band for the pressure; his wife died in 1552, he himself was now paralyzed and died before its completion in 1554 in Seville.

Content

Cieza describes on the basis of their own observations, on the basis of eyewitness accounts and trusted informants the history of the Andean peoples until the arrival of the Spaniards and the conquest of the Inca Empire in the 30s and 40s of the 16th century. In numerous systematic and chronological chapters, he describes the Inca Empire, whose predecessor states, the individual tribes, their manners, customs, clothing, roads and public buildings, cities, and country products - as he mentions the first plant poison curare, the coca plant and the potato. His history and description of the country of Peru stands out thanks to a concise, simple language and sentence construction from where the author takes very back usually.

Career of the remaining manuscripts

Since the printing of the first volume, international relations had deteriorated: the marriage of the Spanish King Philip II with Mary Tudor of England in 1554 had not brought about the desired Spanish- English peace, on the contrary; V. by Emperor Charles 's abdication ( 1555), the accession of his brother Ferdinand as German Emperor ( 1556 ) and Mary's children, Wi Death ( 1558 ), the relations deteriorated further, they failed definitively to the posting of the Armada for the conquest of England in the year 1588th

Ciezas manuscripts, which he had sent to the Dominican monk and critic of the Spanish conquest of America Bartolomé de las Casas, now remained unpublished because it was feared derogatory for the Spanish name and wanted to provide the political opponent no more propaganda ammunition more ( " Leyenda Negra "); already submitted manuscripts have not been submitted to the censorship yet returned to the relatives - of the Indies kept them.

It was the American William H. Prescott (1796-1859) encouraged his History of the Conquest of Peru ( 1847) dealing with Cieza again, so soon the second part of the work that was considered lost long, rediscovered in 1880 in the Escorial been. The rest of his manuscripts lying dormant but probably after 350 years still continue undetected in the " morass of the Spanish archives " ( Hagen ).

Assessment

Ciezas comprehensive foot to 17 -year-old traveling on the royal roads through the Inca empire representation is comparable in its completeness and quality only with the work of Bernal Diaz del Castillo on the Aztecs of Mexico and has "the greatest objectivity of all histories, each of the have been written Incas. [ ... ] It was for the New World, which was Herodotus for ours. " ( von Hagen, preface ). For the knowledge of the pre-Hispanic South America, he comes to importance the reports of the Inca Garcilaso Inca semi - de la Vega and also the profession border on Inca ancestors Waman Puma de Ayala same.

Name Variants

Pedro de Cieza de Leon, Peter de Cieza, Pedro de Cieca de Leon, Pietro Cieza de Leone, Pietro di Cieca di Lione, Pietro Cieza