Decades of the New World

What it is

Written by the Italian humanist Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, the Decades of the New World is a collection of eight tracts about Spanish exploration and conquest, first published in parts from 1511 and together in 1530.

Why it matters

Martyr never traveled to the Americas, but at the Spanish court he saw treasures and codices sent from Moctezuma's realm and interviewed people involved in the conquest. His Decades gave Europeans one of their earliest humanist accounts of Moctezuma's wealth and the Aztec Empire, shaping how Europe imagined this distant ruler.

Look closer

• Why might an account written from secondhand reports and objects differ from one written by someone who had actually met Moctezuma?
• What does the decorated title page, with its scenes of combat, suggest about how the conquest was being presented to European readers?
• What might be left out when a historian relies on treasures and rumors rather than direct testimony?