An interesting work on confession and Christian ethics, this was written for confessors, covering a multitude of topics from the general concept of confession to superstition, sacrilege, adultery, lying during confession, and on to absolution. Tamburini also addresses condemned propositions and speculations.

Searches of NUC Pre-1956 and WorldCat locate fewer than eight copies of this edition in U.S. libraries.

•  Medina, Mexico. 4745; this edition not in DeBacker-Sommervogel.   Contemporary Mexican sheep binding, gilt spine extra, all edges red; covers with wear and abrasions, spine tips pulled with loss of leather and a small area of old, red, transluscent staining at base. Lacks half-title (half-titles are rare in Mexican books of this era). Small worming to lower inner margin throughout, most often only pinhole but occasionally into the text and touching letters. Generally, a nice and clean little book.  (29855)

“complete protestant answer to the many Roman Catholic manuals of casuistry”

The portrait of the author was engraved by Pierre Lombard, while the added engraved title-page is unsigned. Each of the four books here (in two volumes) has a separate title-page; the main title-pages are printed in black and ruled in red. The text is in English, Greek, and Latin. A printed addenda slip is affixed to the final text page of vol. II, above the catalogue of books sold by Richard Royston. Leaf L6 in vol. II is a cancel (and separated).

Provenance:  Vol. I added title-page recto with inked ownership inscription dated 1781 (“T. Moore”); vol. II front fly-leaf with inked ownership inscription dated 1696 (“Guilel. Rayner”) and another (of “T. Moore's”) dated 1781.

•  ESTC R20123; Wing (rev.) T324; Allibone 2348. On Taylor, see: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography online.   Recent quarter calf and marbled paper–covered sides, leather edges tooled in blind, spine with gilt-stamped title and volume labels and gilt-stamped decorations between raised bands. Ownership inscriptions as above. First few leaves of vol. I (including regular and added title-pages) with tiny spots of worming; slightly larger sections of same to inner margins of some subsequent leaves; a number of pages in both volumes with scattered spots of worming, touching letters but not affecting sense. Light waterstaining to outer margins of some leaves. One leaf in vol. II separated. Significant and attractive.  (24889)

Click the image for an enlargement.

Leaf containing pp. 109–10 is a cancel.

•  ESTC T115642.   Removed from a nonce volume. Title-page with inked numeral in upper outer corner. Occasional light staining or dust-soiling; one outer margin with inked annotation. A nice, neat book.  (27637)

The Catholic canonist Augustin Theiner (1804–74) went to the Vatican Archives in 1850 at the invitation of Pius IX, who five years later appointed him Prefect. During his tenure at the BAV, Theiner published numerous collections of primary source material, including the present set. In 1870, however, he was dismissed from his esteemed post for sharing documents related to the Council of Trent with opponents of the Curia during Vatican Council (1869–70).

•  NCE, 14, 9 (Theiner); A. Mauri, “A. Theiner”, in ArchStorIt 21 (1875), pp. 350–91; H. Gisiger, “Theiner und die Jesuiten,” in Bilder aus der Geschichte der katholischen Reformbewegung, 1.5–6 (1875), pp. 213–314; ADB 37, pp. 674–77; LTK 10, pp. 27–28.   Half roan and green cloth over boards with marbled edges and gilt to spines, a bit rubbed and with evidence of onetime shelf-labels; offsetting from leather turn-ins visible at edges and internally on some leaves. Very minor foxing to a few leaves in vol. I, and scattered small inkstains in both volumes. Title imprint in vol. II smudged in printing.  (29409)

Also present in this edition are an “extracto de una carta, respuesta á la en que se pidiò informe de lo sucedido en Sicilia sobre la practica de esta devocion, y un triduo para celebrar la fiesta de la Madre Santissima de la Luz.”

Searches of NUC Pre-1956 and WorldCat locate only six copies in U.S. libraries.

A scarce Mariology work.

•  Palau 32786; Medina, Mexico, 4856.   Original limp vellum; faded red shelfmark at base of spine. Clean, crisp copy.  (29847)

This Arte is consideredimportant in the history of Mexican colonial poetry and the teaching thereof and isone of the earliest works of the theory of poetics printed in the New World.

Provenance:  18th-century ownership inscription on the front free endpaper of Bach. Angel Francisco Valderas.

•  Medina, La imprenta en México, 4124; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VIII, 108; Pimentel, Historia crítica de la poesía en México, 458–59.   Contemporary limp vellum, lacking ties. Fore-edge of front cover and top edge of front free endpaper gnawed by a rodent, though not a very hungry one; vellum of back cover holed near center either by worm action or a natural flaw. Old waterstaining evident diagonally across most leaves, sometimes very faint and sometimes more striking but never offensive, with some corners minimally dog-eared; a neat, good, untattered copy.  (29520)

In his sermon, Torres discusses the need for and goodness that comes from schools for girls. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes in italic, and contains two woodcut initials.

Rare: Medina knew of this only from the Andrade copy. WorldCat finds no copies, nor does COPAC; no copy was found via the OPACs of the Spanish National Library and the Mexican National Library. We must wonder if this IS the Andrade copy that was seen by Medina.

•  Medina, Mexico, 1260; Andrade 763.   Modern full red morocco, gilt extra on covers and spine; gilt roll of a chain design on the turn-ins. Partial, unidentified marca de fuego on top and bottom edges. A two-digit number in ink in margin of title-page; an old waterstain curving across the bottom outside page corners, light in front and heavier towards the back. In a neat cloth slipcase.  (25764)

In addition to the grammar and dictionary the work includes in Quechua a confessionary, the questions asked during the wedding ceremony, the Litany of Blessed Virgin Mary, and “the hymn and prayer devoted to the taking out of the Holy Scripture that is sung in various of the churches of this diocese every day.”

Provenance:  In an 18th-century hand, “Es de . . . Dn. Mariano Navia de Bolaño. On rear pastedown, “Collated perfect. May 22d / [18]94 J.J.”

•  Medina, Lima, 1068; Medina, Lenguas quechua y aymará, 39; Viñaza 336; Sabin 96271; Leclerc, Bibliotheca Americana, 2409. Not in DeBacker-Sommervogel.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties, yapp edges. Very limited, rather neat pinhole worming; occasional spots of soil and paper somewhat browned in some sections due to nature of water in manufacture; inscriptions as above and one page of the vocabulary with contemporary annotation. A very nice, crisp copy.  (28399)

Guatemala was the fourth Latin American city to have a printing press (after Mexico, Lima, and Puebla de los Angeles); the press was brought at the instigation of the bishop of Guatemala, Payo Enríquez de Ribera, who wished to have a work of his own published. In reply to the bishop's appeal for a printer, José Pineda Ibarra arrived at Antigua in 1660. He had worked as an assistant to several printers in Mexico, but according to Medina did not have his own press; when Payo de Ribera's representative found him, he had moved to Puebla, but was apparently not doing well there. (Medina does not list him as a printer in Puebla—presumably he was again working for others.) The bishop apparently paid for the press that was taken to Guatemala, and Pineda Ibarra later purchased it from him. Torre Revello (quoted in Furlong) remarks that despite the dearth of materials, Pineda Ibarra managed to print exceedingly well: "Ningún tipógrafo de los que le sucedieron, durante el periodo colonial, logró superar la pulchritud y elegancia de sus trabajos." This example shows not only several sizes of type, but a woodcut of a papal tiara, at the top of the edict, flanked by typographical ornaments; a line of typographical ornament also appears on either side of the date of the edict, near the bottom of the page.

The various religious orders in Guatemala had promised to make it worth the while of a printer to come, by giving him commissions. Judging from the list of over 30 works Pineda Ibarra printed before 1673—eulogies, sermons, constitutions, regulations, descriptions of religious festivities—the orders fulfilled their promise; his major productions, however, were Bishop de Ribera's Explicatio apologetica nonnullarum propositionum . . . , 1663, and Diego Saenz Ovecuri's La Thomasiada, 1667. Also a bookseller and binder, Pineda Ibarra died in 1679. He was succeeded in 1681 by his son, Antonio de Pineda Ibarra, under whom the press operated until 1721.

The text in hand, a papal edict of 23 July 1672, changes the office for St. Peter Nolasco used by Mercedarians from semiduplex to duplex, at the request of the Queen of France. The Orden Real de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, Redemción de Cautivos, was already established in Guatemala (cf. Medina, Guatemala, 38), and probably paid Pineda Ibarra to print this work.

•  Not in Medina, Guatemala; on the printer, see: Medina's introduction, pp. xviii–xx. Not in Valenzuela, Imprenta en Guatemala; O'Ryan, Bib. Guatemalteca; NUC; BMC. See, however, Oswald, p. 539; Furlong, Orígenes, p. 91; and Woodbridge and Thompson, Printing in Colonial Spanish America, pp. 81–84.

The work is illustrated with a fine full-page engraving by Jose Morales of the biographee kneeling in devotion before an elegant shrine to the Christ Child in her book-graced cell. A woodcut of the Trinity appears at the top of the dedication page, and there are a few nice initials and head- and tailpieces.

Provenance:  Marca de fuego in upper edges of the Convento de San Cosme of the Franciscans of Mexico City, and another marca de fuego in the lower edges.

•  Medina, Mexico, 5022; Puttick & Simpson, Bibl. Mej., 1703.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of green silk cord ties, with title, cross, and old red shelfmark inked to spine; text block loose, held by threads. Light waterstain across early leaves and the occasional spot or soiling elsewhere; worming in lower margins, extending into text beginning on p. 355, touching or costing letters but not whole words (some appropriately repaired). A nice book.  (29522)

The Exposicion de los evangelios con sermones begins with a visually complex title-page printed in black and red and featuringa large woodcut of the Crucifixion, which in this copy has the wounds of Christ additionally touched in a penman's red; and it then proceeds to present 57 sermons, each centered on a moral state or quality (laziness, adversity, sin, patience, charity, love), a doctrinal topic (the trinity, confession, the Passion of Christ, prayer, false prophets, forgiveness of sins), or some aspect of the Gospels. Each sermon is printed in roman type with sidenotes in gothic and begins with two readings, one from one of the four Gospels and the other from another part of the Bible. The work continues with the “Segunda parte de la exposicion de los eva[n]gelios de sanctos en particular, y del comun, con sermones sacados de diversos autores catholicos,” which has its own sectional title-page, signatures, and foliation. It has a four-element woodcut border anda small woodcut of the Annunciation.

All of Valtanás’s writings are scarce. The Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico locates only 9 titles (one catalogued under Baltanas) as held by Spanish libraries and one of those titles is not for a true work but rather for the just mentioned “Segunda parte.” The OPAC of the Spanish National Library shows one additional title not found via the CCPB. This title is not traced via WorldCat, COPAC, Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico, or the OPAC of the Spanish National Library.

•  Palau 349174 (giving incorrect date of publication, as per Nicolás Antonio, and saying it is printed in gothic type when it is in roman). Not in Adams; not in Index Aurel., although one book is listed there under “Baltanas.”  Late 17th- or early 18th-century dark Spanish sheep, gilt spine extra and with a red leather gilt label. Light to occasionally moderate waterstaining, mostly in margins, variously occurring throughout the volume; lacking an initial blank leaf and one text leaf (i.e., lxx) in the “Segunda parte.” A darned good copy of a very rare book.  (26174)

Father Vilaplana (1712–63), a native of Benimarfull, Valencia, Spain, was a Franciscan, a university lecturer in theology, and an “examiner” for the Inquisition. His handbook gives examples of abuses, lays out the pertinent canon laws and papal edicts, and has a section of questions to be asked of accused priests during court proceedings. The work also discusses punishment and other disciplines that the crimes demand.

Since abuse of the confessional fell under the authority of the Inquisition, this work is de facto a manual for Inquisitors.

This is the “Editio secunda locupletior in paucis.” The Bibliotheca Mexicana was the private press of the great bibliographer, writer, and secular cleric Juan Jose de Eguiara y Eguren.

•  Medina, Mexico, 5026; Palau 365782.   Contemporary limp vellum, rodent-gnawed along several edges with a small loss of vellum. Front endpapers with loss to silverfish. Text unwormed and clean.  (29773)

The first edition of 1615 is scarce, as is this second edition, of which at least two variant issues appeared in 1618. All have the same pagination but attribute their publication to Droüart, Cramoisy, or (as in this case) Laurent Sonnius; presumably at least one of the title-pages is a cancel. All are uncommon: OCLC locates only two U.S. institutional holdings of this Sonnius printing. The work bears a woodcut title vignette, headpieces, and initials, with copious printed shouldernotes to the text.

•  Starr, Baptist Bibliography, V551. On Visconti, see: Feller, Dictionnaire historique, 71.   Later quarter mottled calf and speckled paper–covered sides, spine gilt extra with gilt-stamped leather title-label, rebacked preserving most of original spine; edges and extremities rubbed, spine with area of discoloration from now-absent shelving label, original spine leather chipped and cracked. Title-page with institutional rubber-stamps, numeral, and pressure-stamp; one additional page pressure-stamped. Pages age-toned with occasional light spotting and title-page dust-soiled; one spot of pinhole worming to first quarter of volume, not touching text. Early inked inscription on title-page inked over, one instance of early inked underlining. Sound and handsome.  (25877)

•  Sabin 101158; Shaw & Shoemaker 21936. 19th-century quarter green morocco with marbled paper sides; round spine with raised bands, gilt center ornaments in three compartments, title in gilt in one compartment.Ex–Library Company of Philadelphia, properly deaccessioned. Joints rubbed, top of spine pulled; foxing and staining. Uncut.

The text is in Latin printed in roman and italic, decorated with a few woodcut ornaments and one initial at the beginning of the dedication. The engraved title shows Widl holding a lamp and an open a book with the words “Poesis sacra et profana” written across the opening, as he floats above our book's title which appears in an abstract cartouche flanked by four figures standing in an architectural frame supported by portraits of Pindar, Horace Flaccus, Sarbiewski, and Balde.

WorldCat locates only two copies in the U.S.

Provenance:  Albertus Henricus Krussi(?) (his ownership signature in ink, front flyleaf and engraved title).

Evidence of readership: Heavy underlining, occasional annotations, and scribbles on the rear flyleaf verso in early ink.

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, VIII, 1107; W. Kühlmann, “Neo-Latin Literature in Early Modern Germany,” in Camden House History of German Literature, p. 297.   Period-style calf, boards with single-ruled border; round spine with gilt-stamped red morocco label and blind-stamped devices in “compartments” defined by a gilt roll of a chain pattern; red speckled edges. Trimmed close and bound tightly, often affecting but not taking a few letters at the gutter, with light water- or dampstaining in upper outer corner extending into the middle of many pages; intermittent inkstains from the annotator's pen; one corner tip torn away and other corners creased, visible from the edges. Miniscule wormholes barely visible in upper and outer margins extending from preliminaries to mid-text. A substantial little book in several senses.  (29853)

•  Contemporary half morocco, abraded. All edges gilt. Cloth sides worn at tips, exposing boards. Some foxing. Prize inscription.

The Castildelgado document is the settling of a dispute with the town of Ybrillos over pasturing rights.

•  Bound in limp vellum with remnants of ties. Written in clear notarial hands. A very little tattering; in very good condition.