[Sca-cooks] Description of New World Foods 1591

[emilio szabo]

<< I've seen a historian's critique of this with the caveat to trust only what 
Benzoni says he observed.>>


Bear: do you by any chance remember who this historian was, where s/he published 
his/her caveat and on what reason and on what evidence such a caveat is based.


What did other historians, other authors say about Benzoni?


The Italian edition (1572) has been reprinted twice in modern times, the second 
time in 1969 with a long preface. In this preface the editor states, that the 
question of the value of the work is _disputed_:


"Im Streit um den Quellenwert des Werkes und der Betrachtung der persoenlichen 
Angaben Benzonis schwanken die Ansichten zwischen Anerkennung [note] -- wofuer 
auch die zahlreichen Ausgaben sprechen -- und voelliger Ablehnung (...)" 
(Ferdinand Anders, in the 1969 preface, page XIII).

Even if it is true that Benzoni used sources in an imprecise and uncritical way 
(which was common practice in his days) his book with many editions and 
translations remains an important source of contemporary thinking about the New 
World.


I wonder if the Catholic Encyclopedia quoted by Johnna and which is the basis of 
the Wikipedia article on Benzoni is an impartial arbiter in this case. Benzoni 
seems to have been critic of spanish entrepreneurship and of the manners in 
which the natives were treated.


I would like to know what modern historians think of Benzoni and his work.


E.