WORLDWIDE CATHOLICA

Cutting-Edge Biblical Scholarship — Three Maps

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•  Bernard Lamy (1640–1715) was an Oratorian priest, philosopher, and biblical scholar. After getting himself exiled to Grenoble for excessive Cartesianism, he went on to do significant work in biblical studies, and this present work is especially notable: Lamy here contends that Jesus died on the cross on the eve of the Passover (thus at the same time as the Passover lamb was being killed), not during the first day of the Passover. This view, while considered radical at the time, is now generally held by biblical scholars.

This work was first published under the title Harmonia, sive concordia quatuor evangelistarum in 1689. This second edition is printed in small roman types with some italic, Greek, and Hebrew. Ornaments include an ornate woodcut fleur-de-lis on the title-pages, plus initials and headpieces. Vol. II (bound in) consists of the Apparatus chronologicus et geographicus, chronologies and geographical descriptions with three fine fold-out plates: a map of Judea, a plan of Jerusalem, and a plan of the temple.

Provenance: Charles Spencer, Third Earl of Sunderland, lot 7230 in the Sunderland Library sale (1882).

•  On Lamy, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 354–55. 18th-century vellum over boards with raised bands, lightly soiled; on the covers an ornate mandorla inside a composite frame. Crack in the vellum along front joint, joint itself sound. Ex-library with paper labels on spine; old pressure-stamps, including one on title-page of vol. I. Upper outer corner of title-leaf lost taking part of one letter of title; small tear into printed border of first map in vol. II. All edges speckled blue and red. A stout, substantial volume.

The Man Had One of ThoseBreathtakingly Simple Insights . . .

•  Lancellotti (1522–90) was a professor of law in Perugia. His teaching of canon law by arranging it into the same divisions (of persons, things, and actions) as Roman civil law made it much more accessible, and he was invited by Pope Paul IV to produce an Institutes of Canon Law on the model of the Institutes of Justinian, the standard work in Roman civil law. He published the present work, the result of his labors, in 1563; while it failed to attain the same legal status as the Institutes of Justinian, it received wide dissemination, and has had a major impact on the teaching of canon law to this day.

Bound with Lancellotti's work is a summary of titles of chapters of canon law compiled by Thomas Naogeorg (1508–63). Naogeorg's wanderings took him from being a Dominican to being a Lutheran to being a Calvinist. Along the way, during his Lutheran phase, he studied canon law for a year (1551) at Basel, during which time he compiled and published this work, likely as a student's guide. He is better known for his plays, in which he sharply attacks the Papacy.

The two works here were first published by the firm of Guillaume Rouillé, in 1587 and 1588 respectively, and may have been intended to be bound together, as witnessed by the Library of Congress copy. The title-page transcriptions of the earlier editions (except for the date and "hæredes"), and their signatures, pagination, and arrangement, match those of these present 1614 editions. There are italic shouldernotes, and woodcut headpieces and initials.

•  On Lancellotti, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, VIII, 356. Contemporary calf, covers framed in gilt double fillets, rebacked with calf, spine with gilt-stamped leather title-label and gilt-stamped compartment decorations; corners and edges rubbed, sides with small cracks and scuffs. All edges speckled brown. Bouquiniste's paper label on front pastedown and front free endpaper lacking. Two words inked long ago in two margins, and one page with old pencilled underlining.  (3797)

THE ONE, THEONLY COPY ON VELLUM

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•  Lawson's substantial history of the church in Perth, Scotland, was printed in an edition of 251 copies: 240 on “common paper,” 10 on “thick drawing paper,” andthis single copy on vellum (not vellum paper, not Japan vellum).

The title-page is printed in black and red, the text in black only, with one headline in red. The actual printing was accomplished by Robert Hardie and Company, Edinburgh, and is of a high quality, with a scattering of typographic head- and tailpieces and decorative initials.

The frontispiece, a view of “Perth before the Reformation – engraved for Thomas G. Stevenson's Book of Perth,” bears the attribution, “S. Leith, Lithog.” The plates represent the seals of ecclesiastical orders, and the pre-Reformation seal of the City of Perth.

•  Bound in 20th-century half brown morocco with tan cloth sides; spine with raised bands, one compartment with gilt title and others with gilt center ornaments; multicolored head- and tailbands. Displaying the typical rippling or cockling that vellum is prone to, and in parts showing a bit more of it due apparently to onetime old water exposure (though with little discoloration from that), this was later vulnerable to the entry of soot into its text block, most margins and many printed portions having been affected. A remarkable, still remarkably impressive production; and, given what it apparently has experienced via more than one misadventure, a truly remarkable survivor.  (25671)

Integrating the Gallican Church

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•  First edition of this French Revolutionary–era effort to promote religious union and accord after the schism that followed the passing of the 1790 Civil Constitution of the Clergy. The Constitutional bishops herein offer a set of principles for making peace with the non-juring clergy — acknowledging that “nous sommes d'accord sur le fond du dogme” (p. 14). The pamphlet is credited at the end to Claude Lecoz, “Président le Concile National de France” and later Archbishop of Besançon, along with almost 100 additional bishops and priests who had joined the council in defiance of the Pope.

Uncommon: WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only four U.S. institutional holdings.

•  Removed from a nonce volume; outermost bifolium separated. Title-page with affixed paper shelving label in lower inner corner, not quite touching text. One page with early inked annotations in lower and outer margins. Mild to moderate offsetting within text blocks; two different kinds/qualities of paper used. An uncommon document, very expressive of the mindset of the time.  (30680)

The Road to Heaven inNahuatl

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•  Sole colonial-era edition and one rare in commerce of Fr. Martín de León's famous work for priests ministering to Nahuatl-speaking Indians. Fray Martín is universally held to have been one of the great scholars of the language in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, admired for his fluency and ability to explain complex matters in elegant yet easy to understand expositions, as here in his confessionary, catechism, and calendar essay.

Tragedy struck this copy, which lacks the title-leaf, licences, dedication, preliminaries concerning use of the word “Teotlacatl,” prologue, the remarks on the Mexican language, the first nine leaves of the catechism in Nahuatl, and fols. 109 and 124–60. Surviving is most of the catechism, the section in Spanish on the syncretism of the Spanish and the Mexican religious calendars, and all but the last half page of the confessionary in Nahuatl, the missing paragraph supplied in early, neat manuscript — the book's sad owner redeeming its losses as best he could?

•  Sabin 40080; Palau 135423; Medina, Mexico, 160; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 37; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2252; Viñaza 127; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 1543; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl-136.   Disbound but sewn; housed in a quarter red morocco clamshell case with marbled paper sides. Waterstaining throughout causing many pages to have an almost uniform tan appearance except in the foremargins; foremargins with shouldernotes shaved. Missing leaves as itemized above; fols. 30, 80–81, and 110–11 damaged with small loss, and repairs to some of these margins plus a few others; other usually minor scattered stains. The interesting woodcut on fol. 100 verso and text on recto, holed, still striking and readable respectively. Pencilled marks of emphasis and one faded note (or signature?) across a bottom margin in old ink. Priced much, much less than a good, complete copy; and a relic with much more than its lowered price to recommend it.  (25860)

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First Edition:  Jesuit Author, Jesuit Translator, Woman Printer

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•  First edition and first Mexican edition of Juan Francisco Lopez's translation of Giovanni Leti's Pratica utilissima delle dieci venerdi ad onore di S. Ignazio di Lojola, first published at Milan in 1705. Lopez (1699–1786) was born near Caracas, Venezuela, and entered the Society of Jesus as a novice at the Colegio de Tepozotlan, Mexico, in 1715.

The final 264 pages offer a life of St. Igantius Loyola.

Neither WorldCat nor NUC Pre-1956 locates any copies in U.S. libraries, but we know of an unreported copy at the John Carter Brown Library; WorldCat finds one copy in Chile and one in Mexico. The Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico and the OPAC of the BNE find no copies.

•  Medina, Mexico, 3905 (incorrect collation, not noting the first 268 pp.); DeBacker-Sommervogel, IV, 1950.   Contemporary vellum, inked “label” with title to upper spine in brown/black and a charming red-inked shelfmark at bottom. Light waterstaining/soil to lower outer corners at rear, with a bit of other foxing/soiling elsewhere; headers touched by binder's knife in one small section. A very good copy.  (29539)

To Talleyrand, on Behalf ofthe Insulted Catholic Church

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•  First edition, with errata on the title-page verso: This address to Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord was written in response to his report “Liberté des cultes religieux,” made to the Assemblée nationale constituante's Comité de constitution on May 7, 1791, regarding the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. There was also a Chez Dufresne printing later in the same year.

Uncommon: WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 locate only four U.S. institutional holdings of this first edition.

•  This ed. not in Martin & Walter (cf. IV 2: 8376).   Sewn, never bound; title-page with affixed paper shelving label in lower inner corner, not touching text, and with pencilled monogram in upper outer corner. Dustsoiling. Page edges untrimmed and somewhat ragged. One leaf with ink stain in lower outer corner, not touching text; one leaf dog-eared; a few leaves towards back with light waterstaining in lower inner portions, not touching text.  (30695)

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This Author Covers a Lot Here
        (Well, actually, it's TWO authors . . .)

•  A treatise on Martin Luther, Catholic church doctrine, the Augsburg Confession, and heresy.   Beginning on leaf E6, with its own sectional title-page and foliation is Fridericus Staphylus's “Theologia Lutheranae trimembris epitome.”

Rare in the U.S., withWorldCat locating only one copy in America (this at Notre Dame).

•  Adams 728.   19th-century half-calf with marbled paper sides; leather (only) cracked at hinges, with volume holding quite sound. Library bookplate but no other markings.  (19937)

Cortés Historia in Italian — Signed American,PROVIDENCE Red Morocco

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•  Following the achievement of the conquest of Mexico, Cortés did not know how to stop and rest on his laurels: He sought greater fame and honor and to do this embarked on several ill-conceived expeditions that added no luster to his name, and when it became clear that the king was not going to make him a viceroy, the slide down the slope was an unpleasant one. Still striving, he enlisted his chaplain Francisco López de Gómara to write a history of the New World that would include a laudatory biography.

The Historia general de las Indias (first published in 1552) is divided into two parts which stand on their own although clearly written as two parts of a whole. Part I is a history of events concerning the discovery and conquests of the New World exclusive of those involving Cortés. Part II is entirely dedicated to the telling of Cortés's role in the conquest of Mexico and subsequent discoveries.

In this Italian translation from the pen of Agostino di Cravaliz (first published with title Historia di Mexico, et quando si discoperse la nuoua Hispagna [Roma: appresso Valerio & Luigi Dirici fratelli, M.D.L.V]), López's “all-Cortés” volume stands as part III of the three-volume Historia, delle nuove Indie Occidentali, with parts I and II being translations of Cieza de Leon's Historia, over Cronica del gran regno del Peru and the previously mentioned part I of Gómara's Historia general de las Indias.

The text here is printed in italic type except the capitals, which are roman. Leaves 292–96 containa brief study of Nahuatl and include lists of numbers, months, days, and years in that language.

Binding:  American signed binding by Coombs of Providence, R.I., for John Carter Brown (ca. 1865), with his binder's ticket. Full red morocco, round spine, raised bands; author, title, place and date of publication in gilt on spine; gilt roll on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt. Gilt supra-libros of John Carter Brown on front cover.

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on first leaf of preliminaries, supra-libros as above. On his death to his son John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900). On his death deeded to the John Carter Brown Library. Deaccessioned 2008.

•  Alden & Landis 560/28; Sabin 27739; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 2t; Medina, BHA, 159n. This edition not in H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, but see 1692.   Binding as above. Lacks the title-leaf; (therefore) first leaf of preliminaries with a John Carter Brown's personal ownership stamp and his bookplate on front pastedown. Waterstaining, barely visible in many margins and lightly across text in last half. Four leaves with very old scribbling (pen trials?) in margins. A treasure with a distinguished provenance, presenting itself in the classic fashion of a 19th-century “collector's copy.”  (28914)

Rhetoric for the Preacher: Barcelona Edition

•  Luis de Granada (1504–88) was a Dominican friar noted for his theological learning. As is appropriate for a member of the Order of Preachers, he here treats of homiletical rhetoric, giving his readers advice on how to prepare sermons, frame an argument, and adorn their language for the maximum effect. First published in Latin in 1576, this work was translated into French, then into this Spanish version by Bishop José Climent of Barcelona (1770).

•  Palau 108151. Recent neat vellum over light boards, spine lettered in black. Paper cockled with light to moderate waterstaining and small spots of soiling, not impeding legibility. Some marginal chipping with tissue paper repair on front fly- and title-leaf, a few shallow marginal tears elsewhere, and a wormhole in lower inner margin of final 22 leaves and rear fly-leaf; rear fly-leaf with some holing. Overall actually in very good condition.

The Papal Court — As Seen by a Critic

•  Revised edition, following the first of 1660, of this critical look at the Papal court. “Lunadoro” has been tentatively identified as the pseudonym of biographer and historian Gregorio Leti, author of anti-Catholic and anti-Papal polemics including Il nipotismo di Roma, Il putanismo romano, and the Vita di Donna Olimpia Maidalchini Pamfili. The Catholic Encyclopedia (online) refers to Leti as “mendacious and inexact,” though contemporary readers found this and nearly all of his other works sufficiently interesting to call for numerous editions and translations. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Francesco Sestini’s Il Moderno Maestro di Camera has a separate title-page, dated 1698; the first title-page bears the printer’s crowned salamander device and the second a vignette of Minerva. The collation here matches descriptions of other copies.

Uncommon: Searches of OCLC and RLIN locate only three copies in U.S. libraries.

Provenance: Late 18th-century private collector’s booklabel — “Ex Biblioth. Hamburg. Wolfiana”; also with a 19th-century bookplate.

•  Contemporary vellum, spine with early hand-inked title; binding with small spots of light discoloration, spine title a bit scuffed. All edges speckled blue. Front pastedown with bookplates as above; front free endpaper with early inked shelving number. First gathering, including title, a cancel. Title-page reinforced at inner margin. Pages clean.

Precious New Year's Gift in a FlatteringEMBROIDERED Binding

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•  Charming miniature almanac for a Belgian town, full of useful (now evocative) information as below and in a delightful binding worth its own leading paragraph . . .

Binding:  Splendid18th-century embroidered binding of gold wire and silver and colored threads over white silk, each cover featuring one pink flower with a long green stem and leaves at its center. Raised wide swirls of silver with touches of gold surround this in relief, the whole cartouche being set on a background of densely laid-on metallic (silver?) threads semé in gold; a thin gold border edges the covers, with spine sewn in a relatively simple pattern of leaves and crossbars. Boards cut flush with text block, text of calendar section interleaved with blanks for memoranda. All edges gilt.

Contained in this little book, surrounded on each page by a simple woodcut border, are the birthdays of European royals, including newborns; woodcut illustrations of moon cycles and numismata; tables of international currency values, tariffs, and taxes; names of government officials in Liege; a town calendar of events, meetings, and saints' days; and anadvertisement for the publisher, who sold the present almanac in various bindings and other such “cute New Year's Gifts,” including Paris almanacs, at his local shop.This was the fanciest binding style offered chez Dessain, according to his ad!

Provenance:  Ex musaeo Hans Furstenberg (gilt-stamped russet leather bookplate, front pastedown), the famous collector of 18th-century French books.

WorldCat finds similar little almanacs from the same period, butnot this.

•  Binding as above; worn at edges, longest stitches across spine loosening, silver thread tarnished as virtually always and colored threads fading. Minor offsetting from bookplate onto title-page, else in good condition.  Housed in a 19th-century marbled paper–covered slipcase.  (30397)

AnIRISH Bishop!

•  Second edition. Edward Maginn (1802–49), Irish catholic prelate, was appointed coadjutor to Dr. John MacLaughlin, bishop of Derry, in 1845 and consecrated in 1846. DNB states that he was “an enthusiastic politician” and “zealously promoted all the nationalist and clerical movements of his time. He gave evidence before Lord Devon's commission on the occupation of land in Ireland, wrote a series of letters on tenant right, and published 'A Refutation of Lord Stanley's Calumnies against the Catholic Clergy of Ireland.'”

•  Publisher's purple cloth, stamped in gilt on the spine; boards lightly soiled, corners bumped; spine sunned, pulled at head and foot, cloth of spine with a couple of very tiny tears and black spots. Front pastedown with bookplate. Small piece cut from bottom blank areas of four leaves of preliminaries, blank leaf at front torn out. Several pages with stains in margins. Very good. (14498)

Exact & True? (re: The “Popish Plot”)

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•  Little is known about Col. Roderick Mansell, except that he was one of the Whig managers of “retribution” for the Popish Plot—i.e., of the “last large-scale persecution of Catholics in England” (NCE), founded upon the supposed attempt by Catholic nobles and clergy to murder Charles II, as reported by Titus Oates (1649–1705). Before Oates’s perjury was publicly discovered, 25 Catholics were judicially murdered, hundreds were incarcerated, and many of the latter died in prison. Like many others, Mansell attempted to cash in on the hysteria generated by the Plot by publishing his version of events, here present in its sole edition. (Much of the rest of this consists of various speakers’ depositions as to the “intrigue”—interesting reading.)

•  ESTC R20941; Wing (rev.) M514. On the Popish Plot, see: New Catholic Encyclopedia, X, 590–94; and the article on Titus Oates in The Dictionary of National Biography, XLI, 296–303. Removed from a nonce volume with remnants of previous binding at “spine” and two fly-leaves from the volume remaining attached also, on the second of which is a list of contents in ink. The leaves of this piece are numbered in ink consecutively on the upper outer corners of the versos. Some staining, foxing, or soiling, and a few shallow tears, with no loss of print. All edges speckled red. (4907)

Dad Helped with Expenses

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•  Second of ten colonial-era editions of this Franciscan's manual of spiritual exercisesdesigned for personal use, hence the small format allowing one to carry it with one. Publication of this edition was at the expense of the author's father.

Preceding p.1 of the text is apowerfully executed unsigned copper-plate engraving of Christ Crucified.

All editions are lightly held in U.S. libraries, and of this edition searches of WorldCat and NUC Pre-1956 find no copies in the U.S.

Provenance:  Ownership signature at base of title-page, “Felipe Neri Garcia.”

•  Medina, Mexico, 7319.   Contemporary vellum over light paste boards; green silk place marker. Very old tan liquid stain at rear of volume, well-spread but light. Solid and good copy.  (29106)

This Hadat Least One Ardent Reader

•  First Irish printing of this defense of Catholicism, here translated by Patrick Costello from the third edition in French, but written prior to the first Vatican Council

•  Publisher's blind-stamped cloth, spine with gilt-stamped title; cloth showing light wear over extremities and sides. Last few leaves with mild foxing. Text with pencilled marks of emphasis, including exclamation marks added at interesting points. (13564)

Mere Angélique & Her Works

Port-Royal

•  History of the influential Cistercian convent at Port Royal and the development of the Jansenist movement nurtured therein, along with a biography of Mere Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d'Andilly, printed in three volumes. Attribution of this work is something of a confusing issue, as several histories were published with virtually identical titles; some of the one-volume 1739 editions can be differentiated by the subtitle Relations de la vie et des vertus de quelques unes des filles de la Mere Angelique, au nombre desquelles ont eté sa mere & ses soeurs qui sont mortes religieuses à Port Royal. Various sources cite the Sieur du Fossé, Jean Louis Barbeau de la Bruyère, Nicolas Fontaine, and others as authors of those works. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Contemporary mottled calf, spines with gilt-stamped leather title-labels, spine compartments with gilt-stamped floral decorations; covers mildly acid-pitted and considerably abraded, with leather lost at head of spine, corners, and joints. Spines with paper shelving labels or remnants thereof; front pastedowns each with bookplate. All edges marbled. Faint pencilled marginalia and bracketing; intermittent offsetting.  (22804)

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Mercedarians in Lima — 1804

•  St. Peter Nolasco (ca. 1182–1249 or 1256) founded the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary for the Ransom of Captives (or Mercedarians) in 1218; quickly successful in its work of redeeming Christian prisoners, it also undertook other charitable work. A third “Mercedarian” order was founded in 1260 for lay male and female supporters and assistants, and the first Mercedarian convent was established in Lima in 1535, the year of the Spanish founding of the city, where the religious were noted for their work among natives.

This document gives the rules, constitutions, privileges, and indulgences of the third order in Lima on the occasion of its reestablishment at the conventual church of St. Michael. A fine woodcut of the arms of the Mercedarian order, surrounded by a typographic border, graces the verso of the title-leaf.

This is the first edition of the Breve compendio; it was reprinted in 1870.

•  Medina, Lima, 1945. Limp vellum lightly cockled and a little stained/soiled, with small hole to front cover from a defect in the skin; traces of adhesive on covers and a small paper label on front one. One small wormhole piercing margin of some leaves; traces of soiling and very light waterstaining. Library bookplate and personal rubber-stamp on front pastedown; old call number neatly penned (and crossed out) on title-page verso.

Anabaptists Anathemized

•  Meshovius (1591–1667) was an orthodox Catholic theologian and professor at the University of Cologne. His history of the Anabaptists covers the period to 1536 and is heavily based on the contemporary anti-Anabaptist writings of Bullinger, Cochläus, Oecolampadius, Luther, Zwingli, and Melanchthon, but also on works of his own contemporaries like Ubbo Emmius Click the images for enlargements.

The work is printed in a small roman type, dense on the page within a ruled border, with side- and shouldernotes. There are occasional woodcut historiated initials and head- and tailpieces.

•  Hillerbrand 2441.   Contemporary limp vellum lacking the ties; light waterstain on front pastedown. A totally browned copy (too much ferrous material in the water of the paper manufacture), yet not a tattered or fragile one. A few short tears, repaired. Old, large, oval stamp of a defunct seminary on title-page and one other.  (26197)

Ending an Amnesty for Rebels

•  In this VERY LARGE broadside, printed in double-column format, the Mexican Inquisitors reprint a decree of the Inquisitor General announcing an end to the previously granted period for obtaining amnesty for the crime of rebelling against the crown and its church. Click the image for an enlargement.

Signed by each Mexican Inquisitor with his paraph and with the woodcut seal of the Inquisition in the lower left corner

Very uncommon: We trace only one copy in the U.S. — at the University of California at Berkeley.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico.   Several holes of various sizes, including one very large one in the middle of the first column, with loss of paper costing words and whole sentences. Otherwise, light staining and some instances of soiling most notably around the holes, only. Priced accordingly.  (17028)



Mexicana, from “contact” to Independence, is one of our specialties.
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Catholic Bible Studies  

•  First American edition. The author was a bishop in England and leader of the Catholic Emancipation movement. Click the interior image for an enlargement.

•  Parsons 655; Shoemaker 2272. Treed sheep, red spine label, gilt ruling on spine. Edges rubbed and abraded, refurbished; front joint and hinge expertly reinforced; now nice. Ex-Georgetown University with stamps on title-page; some old dog-ears and spots.

Milner, John. A brief summary of the history and doctrine of the Holy Scriptures. Philadelphia: Eugene Cummiskey, 1821. 8vo. [1] f., 278 pp.
$155.00

•  Second American edition (the first, above, was 1820).

•  Parsons 680; Shoemaker 6058. Treed sheep, red spine-label; gilt ruling on spine. Joints open and covers going; edges rubbed and abraded. Foxed. Georgetown marks in pencil on front free endpaper.

The Anglican Church as theHeir of the Church of Antiquity

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•  First edition: Doctrinal discussion by Richard Montagu (or Mountague), Bishop of Norwich. A controversial theologian, Montagu sought to moderate between the extremes of Catholicism and Calvinism, with his stated goal being to support the Anglican Church by standing “in the gapp against Puritanisme and Popery” (Correspondence of John Cosin, 1.21). Allibone, however, joins many of the bishop's contemporaries in feeling that “There is no doubt as to the place where Bishop Montagu desired to go and to carry with him the king and the Church of England, — to the bosom of the Church of Rome.”

In the present work Montagu examines Jewish doctrine and practices before the birth of Jesus, and their implications for Christianity; in doing so he argues strongly against Casaubon, Scaliger, and other Protestant scholars, while defending the Catholic Baronius and his Annales Ecclesiastici. The dedication, written in Latin and Greek, is addressed to Jesus Christ.

•  Wing (rev. ed.) M2469; ESTC R3327; Allibone 1344.   Contemporary mottled calf, shellacked, covers framed and panelled in blind double fillets with blind-tooled corner fleurons, simply rebacked (without labels) with complementary mottled calf; board edges with gilt roll. Original leather rubbed, shellac showing small cracks, edge gilt mostly lost; title-page with small early inked addition to author's name and with inked numeral in lower margin. One early inked marginal annotation, one early inked doodle in lower margin. First and last few leaves with margins browned; light age-toning throughout; occasional foxing and spots of staining. Pagination interrupted, but collation matches ESTC.  (26206)

The FIRST ENTIRELY ENGRAVED Book
Printed inthe AMERICAS

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•  With this work Montes de Oca secured for himself the position of the most important and talented engraver in the New World at the beginning of the 19th century. He conceived andself-published this, the first entirely engraved book printed in the Americas.  In a series of 30 plates with captions he told the biography of St. Philip of Jesus (1572–97), the protomartyr of Japan.

This is a rare book with only nine U.S. libraries reporting ownership: Several of those copies are lacking either one, two, or three of the plates, and it is certain that the book was issued unbound, as a gathering of 31 individual leaves, thus accounting for copies with less than the “requisite” engraved title and 30 plates. This copy in fact confirms that the plates spent part of their lives unbound, as two of them are touched by small instances of worming that have not touched their next neighbors!

Montes de Oca's plates are particularly detailed and moving when they show the saint in Japan being abused and tortured, but all are strong and striking.

Uncut.

•  Palau 363045.   Late 19th-century plain sheep binding. Uncut; lacking two plates and two with minor worming as noted above; all plates well impressed, as would be expected of a work that the artist himself saw through the press! A very good copy of a scarce and important work.  (25095)

His “Travels” Here Are throughTime & Texts

•  First U.S. edition, following the London first of the same year, of a controversial defense of Catholicism from the author of the enduringly popular Lalla Rookh and other poems. This eclectic theological treatise is arranged as a chronological examination of the history of Christianity, conducted by the titular Irishman who tries (rather, “tries”) but fails to find a convincing reason to convert from the Roman Catholic to the Protestant Church.

•  American Imprints (1833) 20211; NSTC 2M35483.   Publisher's brown cloth, spine with printed paper label; cloth faded and discolored, spine label rubbed. Front free endpaper with faint pencilled ownership inscription dated 1856. Light to moderate foxing throughout. (20642)

BUILDER of the FIRSTNew World Utopian Community

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•  In the 18th century Mexico saw a birth of great biographical writing focusing on important figures in its history, especially its ecclesiastical history. Vasco de Quiroga (1470–1565) was an imposing and perhaps quixotic figure during the early post-Conquest decades. A learned man, he arrived in Mexico in 1531 as one of the first four judges of the high court (i.e., oidores) and became the first bishop of the far western province of Michoacan. In that “out of the way” region of Mexico he devoted himself to establishing European culture, ensuring fair treatment of the indigenous population, creating towns and cities, and building the first utopian community in the New World.

Not the least of his accomplishments was the creation of two pueblo-hospitals for native Americans, and appended and integral to this biography are his “Reglas, y ordenanzas para el gobierno de los Hospitales de Santa Fé de México, y Michoacàn,” which occupy the final 29 pages.

Historians still consider this to be the definitive biography of Quiroga. The engraved portrait of him, handsome and from the burin of José Morales, adds a face to the words of the biographer and to the account of the deeds of the biographee.

•  Medina, Mexico, 5099; Wellcome, Medical Americana, M.134; Palau 181902; Beristain, III, 2059.   Contemporary limp vellum lacking ties. A very good copy.  (23061)

The End Times, According to Muggleton

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•  First edition: Explication of Revelation, “proving” that Muggleton and John Reeve were God's “Last Messengers, and the Witnesses of the Spirit” (p. 165) as mentioned in Rev. 11:3 ff., with a divine commission to declare “the doctrine of the true God, and the right devil” (p. 161). Reeve and Muggleton were the prophets and leaders of the Muggletonians, a small Christian sect that denied the doctrine of the Trinity, believed that God would no longer interfere in human affairs after the revelation of their founders, and condemned prayer and preaching. In this, his first independent work following Reeve's death in 1658, Muggleton examines Revelation from a quirky, materialist, anti-Reason perspective, argues that God has a manlike, corporeal face and body, and discusses the failings of the “seven Churches . . . having no Commission from God” (p. 52): Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Presbytery, Independent, Baptist, Ranter, and Quaker.

Provenance:  Final blank leaf with inked inscriptions reading “Tho.s. Scupholme His Book 1740" and “Henery Collier His Book 1759.”

•  ESTC R267; Wing (rev. ed.) M3050; Smith, Anti-Quakeriana, 305.   Period-style calf, covers framed in blind double fillets, spine with gilt-ruled raised bands and gilt-stamped leather title-label. Pages age-toned and spotted; one leaf with tear from lower margin into text, sewn by hand some time ago.  (26004)

For more MUGGLETONIANA,  click here.

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