Diego Bringas de Manzaneda y Encinas was a Franciscan and his epitome of Abad's work is written in “octava rima”: as such it holds an important place in Mexican colonial-era poetry, especially in the subgenre of Christian poetry.

The work's chief themes are the Immaculate Conception and the attributes of God, but it also delves into the relation of science and our understanding of the cosmos: Newton and Huygens are specifically mentioned in the section on knowledge.

•  Palau 258 & 35854; DeBacker-Sommervogel, I, 3; Medina, Mexico, 7400.   Contemporary vellum over light boards. All edges green. A very nice copy of a significant work of early Mexican poetry, religion, and, at points, science.  (29433)

•  Very good condition. Written in a clear, easy-to-read hand; attractively, as well as sensibly, laid out on the pages.  (27600)

Click the images for enlargements.

•  Brunet, I, 652; Willems 452.   Late 18th-century plain morocco, turn-ins with gilt roll, rebacked some time ago with lighter morocco; old leather rubbed and variably discolored, front cover with old patch repair. Front free endpaper with pencilled annotations and affixed cataloguing slip. A few pages with faint staining, most clean. One leaf with small paper flaw affecting about six letters. All edges gilt.  (27391)

The author (1700–83), a Jesuit and a native of Granada, includes 410 pages of the “Obras” of the nun, and his thick volume includes a fine engraved portrait of her by Ortuño.

The Bibliotheca Mexicana was the private press of the great bibliographer, writer, and secular cleric Juan Jose de Eguiara y Eguren.

•  Palau 26854; Medina, Mexico, 4454; DeBacker-Sommervogel, I, 1220.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties. A copy that has seen more than its share of water: waterstaining variously throughout (though often light); first half of volume cockled; title-leaf repaired and now mounted, with four other leaves repaired along margins. Far from the ideal copy, but a decent and usable one priced for its shortcomings; portrait engraving, lovely.  (29736)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

The New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia notes that Dominique Bouhours (1632–1702) was best known to English readers as the author of this much-reprinted work and an earlier life of Ignatius of Loyola; for a long time these were “the most widely circulated biographies” of the two saints. Bouhours also achieved prominence for his anti-Jansenist writings.

The pair of volumes were nicely printed, with some nicely engraved head- and tailpieces. The text offers sidenotes.

Rare.  A search of OCLC records only two copies, of which this is one, now deaccessioned.

•  De Backer-Sommervogel, I, 1904–1905; Cordier, Bibliotheca Japonica, 146.   Recent full calf, covers framed and panelled with single gilt fillets and with gilt-stamped corner fleurons; spines gilt extra, with gilt-ruled raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title and volume labels, gilt publication date at foot, and elaborately gilt-tooled floral decorations in compartments; marbled endpapers. Tear in outer margin of pp. 269/270, just barely touching sidenotes; very occasional foxing; offsetting from leather of previous binding affecting first and last leaves at margins, including title-pages. Ex-library, with faint penciled notations on verso of title-page and at base of following page in each volume. Vol. I lacks the frontispiece portrait. Faults noted, still a good copy and in an attractive binding.  (24526)

•  DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 45.   Contemporary vellum, spine with early hand-inked title; vellum with small spots of staining and rear pastedown gone, binding overall clean and tight. Frontispiece with shallow chip to lower edge not into plate area; pages slightly age-toned with some very faint spotting in the second part, otherwise clean.  (29267)

Provenance:  Library stamp on title-page of a Jesuit residence in Mallorca.

•  Publisher's acid-stained sheep, abrasions to front cover; gilt spine. Library stamp as above; front free endpaper and half-title with old stains, otherwise expectable age-toning only.  (28722)

Sánchez Valverde was the first writer born in Santo Domingo to publish a book and he was a staunch defender of America and his native island against all prejudices and “calumnies” he perceived as directed against both.

Curiously, several sources (Palau, Sabin, WorldCat) give the terminal page of this work as 80 (or LXXX) and certainly the copy at the John Carter Brown Library conforms to that. This copy, however, clearly stops at page LXXIX with the word “Fin” and with what would be LXXX being blank: Ours is in line with Medina.

•  Palau 55495; Sabin 76308; Medina, BHA, 5155. On Clavigero, see: DeBacker-Sommervogel, II, 1209–12.   Loosely attached at one sewing point to a crude and ill-fitting vellum binding; binding soiled and pastedowns stained. Title-page with small splashy stains (dirty water?) in outer margin. Text clean with minimal light foxing here and there.  (29848)

Unlike the earlier Mexican printing, this translation is by a Mexican: Alexandro Alvarez de Guitian, the “factor veedor” of the Treasury Office in Veracruz and in the port of San Juan de Ulua. Alvarez de Guitian seems to have liked Croiset's writings for he translated several into Spanish.

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

•  Medina, Mexico, 4389; DeBacker Sommervogel, II, 1668.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties, author and title inked in large handsome lettering to spine long ago, with an old library shelf mark also inked thereon (in red); textblock recased. Occasional foxing, occasional stain. Withal a rather nice copy.  (29772)

•  Schoenberg, Jesuit Mission Presses, 74.   Stitched in original blue paper self-wraps with title and ornamental border in black; corners of wraps and pages variously a little bumped or (at lower outside) chipped or dog-eared. Two old and faded round rubber-library-stamps of the “Bibl. Scholasticatus Pro. Oreg. S.J.” (on front wrapper & first leaf); three-digit number in white on front wrapper and a longer one minutely to pp. 2 and 10. Small repair to rear wrapper. A clean, decent copy.  (29305)