Nobilario de Dom Pedro Conde de Barcellos." Eighteenth-century manuscript on paper, in Portuguese.

Folio (31.3 x 22.7 cm.), contemporary limp vellum (minor soiling), fore-edge cover extensions, with title vertically in manuscript: "Cde. D. Pº Filho d'elRey D. Dinis das Linhagens de Portugal." Written in ink, in a large, legible hand, with a smaller version for the copious marginal notes. Deckle edges at fore-edge. Very fine. Collections of Jacinto da Silva Mengo and the Barão de Rendufe (see below). Complete according to the foliation by the original scribe: (1 l.), 287 ll. [i.e., 288, with an unfoliated leaf following f. 197], (2 blank leaves and pastedown foliated 288-291). *** Attractive eighteenth-century manuscript copy of one of the seminal works of genealogy and history for the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages. It was written in the fourteenth century in Gallego-Portuguese. In a highly stratified society a person's lineage was crucial, and D. Pedro's work was a model for many later genealogical accounts. It includes not only lists of names and relationships, but narrative accounts of the lives of many of those listed. Despite some criticisms of its accuracy (especially for the earliest period), it is the only source for many relationships of noble families in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Castile. The Nobiliario was frequently translated into Portuguese and Castilian, often with additions. It first appeared in print at Rome in 1640. It has been often reprinted, and the fact that it is in print today in several editions is a testimony to its importance for historians.By birth and by marriage, Pedro Afonso, conde de Barcelos (1287-1354), was affiliated with the highest nobility of the Iberian Peninsula. The illegitimate son of D. Dinis of Portugal (r. 1279-1325) and great-grandson of Alfonso X el Sabio, he first married into the Portuguese Sousa family and then into the Aragonese Ximenes family. During a period of exile he absorbed the culture of the Castilian court, and after his return to Portugal he transformed his estate at Lalim into a cultural center. While at Lalim, D. Pedro composed two of the most important medieval prose works in Gallego-Portuguese: the Cronica Geral de Espanha in 1344 and this book, known as the Livro de Linhagens do conde D. Pedro, in 1340-44.Like D. Dinis, D. Pedro was a poet and troubador. His lost "Livro de Cantigas," a collection of Galician songs, was probably an archetype for the medieval Spanish and Portuguese cancioneros. Hence D. Pedro is at least partially responsible for the preservation of many important medieval texts that would otherwise have been lost.Provenance: Inscription on title page reads, "Hé de Jacinto da Silva Mengo, e agora do Illmº e Excmº Sr. Barão de Renduffe. Lisboa o 1º de Setembro de 1842." Jacinto da Silva Mengo (1808-1866) served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (see Innocêncio III, 246). Simão da Silva Ferraz de Lima e Castro, Barão e Conde de Rendufe (1795-1857), began his diplomatic career in 1827. From February 1842 to November 1845 he served as minister plenipotentiary to Berlin, and during part of this period (1844) was also Portuguese representative to the court of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He negotiated treaties of commerce and navigation with Prussia in 1844 and with several other German states in 1844 and 1845. In early 1846 he was sent as minister plenipotentiary to Madrid, to negotiate a treaty regarding Spanish, French and English intervention in the "Maria da Fonte" movement. After an assignment in Paris, he married a wealthy Belgian noblewoman in 1849.***