Thesis on the geography of Baja California, attempting to determine whether it was an island or a peninsula. The author gives a brief résumé of the history of California from itsdiscovery which he states was by Cortés in 1534; he then refers to the Ulloa expedition [1533], Rodríguez Cabrillo, Marcos de Niza, Coronado and Atonda [Isidro de Atondo y Antillón, the Spanish governor of Sinaloa, Mexico]. Many of his facts were derived from the Informe of Picolo. Cf. Wagner.

Francesco Maria Picolo was a Spanish Jesuit. His work "Informe del estado de la nueva christiandad de California, que pidio por auto, la Real Audiencia de Guadalaxara, obedeciendo â la real cedula de N. Rey y Señor D. Phelipe V. Fecha en Madrid, á 17 de julio, de 1701" was printed in Mexico in 1702 and was reprinted and the first appeared in 1705 in vol. 5 of the series "Lettres édifiantes et curieuses écrites des missions étrangères", which were the reports from the Jesuit missions.

Signatures: A-B⁸ (A1 verso blank)

Engraved head piece.

An engraved map of the Baja Peninsula is bound to face p. [4]

Thesis (doctoral)--Philipps-Universität Marburg, 1739.

Howes, W. U.S.iana, 1650-1950 (1962 edition), C211.

Wagner, H.R. Spanish Southwest, 1542-1794, 108.

Barrett, E.C. Baja California, 1535-1956; a bibliography, 953.

European Americana 739/118.

John Carter Brown Library copy bound as 3rd item of 3 with: De jurisdictione militari, et cum primis ea, quae competit magistratibus militaribus in imperio, iisque vel Caesareanis, vel imperii, & circulorum, vel deniq[ue] statuum singulorum occasione formandae in Imperio militiae perpetuae, Nuremberg, 1741.

John Carter Brown Library copy bound in contemporary vellum over boards.

John Carter Brown Library copy acquired with the assistance of the Harper Fund.