Ulrich Schmidls La Plata-Bericht aus dem 16. Jhdt. Eine Bibliographie der Handschriften, Druckausgaben sowie weiterer Fassungen.

Ulrich Schmidl's La Plata report from the 16th century. A bibliography of manuscripts, printed editions and other versions. Ulrich Schmidl's travel account to the La Plata region, first published in Sebastian Frank, Weltbuch, part 2, Frankfurt: Feyerabend 1567 is one of the main sources about the conquest of what is now Argentina and Paraguay. It is the second book published in Europe about the recently conquered region. Schmidl was born at an unknown date around 1510 in Straubing (Bavaria) into a wealthy merchant family. He travelled to Spain via Antwerp in 1534, where he joined Pedro de Mendoza's expedition to the La Plata region in 1535. Following the voyages of discovery by Juan Díaz de Solis in 1516 and Sebastian Cabot (1526-1529), the Spanish court had set itself the task of systematically exploring the region to which it was entitled under the Tratado de Tordesillas (1493). The expedition settled in Buenos Aires, but had to leave due to conflicts with the local indigenous population. Later Asunción founded in 1537 provided a more viable colony because the Spaniards could ally with the Guarani population there. Schmidl took part of all main entradas (expeditions) in the region. Schmidl returned to his native region in 1553 after a 20 years stay as soldier among the Spaniards. He began writing his historical manual about his time immediately after his return, however he never published it. It circulated in manuscript copies of whom a few are extant and was not published until 1567 in a version slightly different from the autograph now in the Württembergische Landesbibliothek Stuttgart. He had to move to Regensburg as a protestant and died there in 1580/1581. His work was published without his consultation in 1567 in Frankfurt and later in nearly 100 editions in various languages and inspired art works and films. It is a main source about the region's history and indigenous population, mainly the Guarani, allied to the Spaniards in Asunción, now Paraguay. This bibliography presents all of the contemporary manuscripts, printed editionis, retellings and films works he inspired. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)