gems, jade

An English collection of early accounts of the Americas, translated and compiled by Richard Eden, centered on Pietro Martire d’Anghiera’s Decades of the New World. The work describes Spanish exploration and conquest, the geography and peoples of the Caribbean and American mainland, and the natural products and resources encountered there. Of particular gemological interest are numerous early accounts of gold, pearls, emeralds, and other precious materials, including their Indigenous use, sources, trade, and acquisition by the Spanish, making it an important English-language source for sixteenth-century European knowledge of American gems and precious metals.