•  Sutro 902. Removed from a nonce volume.

Copies of the Indexes that can be proved to have been used in colonial Mexico are virtually unknown. This is the first such pairing of 16th-century printings that we have seen in our 30 years of dealing in colonial Mexicana.

Provenance: Marca de fuego on top and bottom edges of the Convento of San Antonio Sultepec; later in the library of Santa Barbara of Puebla according to a 17th-century notation on the title-page of the first work (“Es de Sta. Barbara de la Puebla, por n[uest]ro her[man]o fr[ay] Juan de Santa Ana, g[uardi]an”).

•  Aed.I: Palau 118926 Aed. II: 118927 & 118928. Contemporary limp and cockled vellum, a little shrunken and with remnants of ties. Lower margins sometime exposed to water and with arrested mildew damage, causing loss of paper that has been repaired in heavy-handed fashion. Good copies, but not very good ones, of these remarkable survivors!

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Offered here is a circular letter that the Holy Office sent all over New Spain saying that it had been a long time since there had been a General Inquisitorial “Visit,” and that consequently many law breakers are going unpunished. The Inquisitors call on everyone, no matter status or social condition, to denounce the following categories of criminals: Jews, Muhammadans, Lutherans (i.e., Protestants), “alumbrados,” abusers of the confessional, bigamists, astrologers and necromancers, witches and warlocks, devil worshippers, collectors of astrology and witchcraft books, peyote and marijuana users, and a number of other specified offenders and heretics. Tips on how to “spot” the various malefactors are given in detail and there are extended explanations of why the offenses are serious.

The explanations were undoubtedly given as a balm to ease the consciences of those worried about “turning in” a friend, neighbor, or relative. In the 1770s and 1780s the power and influence of the Inquisition in Mexico was at a very low ebb, and, indeed, it was on the verge of being suppressed. This publication shows just how desperate the institution was to justify itself.

Very rare.  Medina did not know of this and we only trace copies to the John Carter Brown and Cushing libraries. Our dating of the piece is based on the typography, the paper, the historiated initial on p. 1, the very large woodcut device of the Holy Office that appears above the beginning of the text, and most importantly, the in-text manuscript date of 1713 in the copy at the Cushing Library.

This copy bears a manuscript completion date of 14 November 1807, showing clearly that a large remainder of this early-18th-century printing was available a century later for reissue at a time when the earlier concerns had resurfaced.

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; nor González de Cossío, Cien; nor González de Cossío, 510.   Light to noticeable waterstaining in margins, darkest in upper margins of last two leaves. Tattering in blank margins. Silverfish damage to verso of last leaf causing weakness of paper, repaired with archival tissue (not obscuring or touching any text).  A good+ copy.  (24696)

Searches of OCLC, RLIN and NUC Pre-1956 locate only four copies in the U.S.

•  Medina, Mexico, 11808; Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 3654; Steele 46; Sutro 134. Removed from a volume with ragged inner margin. Faint rubber-stamp in one margin.

This is the first time that the “provincias internas” would have representation in Mexico City!

Rare. We find no copy in OCLC.

•  Not in Streeter, Texas; not in Sutro.   Very nice copy with two short fold tears.  (24528)

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

The author was the cosmographer and historiographer of the Dutch East India Company as well as the Dutch royal family's official translator.

This is one of the scarcest volumes in commerce of the Elzevirs' series of histories in the Respublica series. It is only the third copy we have had in our 30+ years in the antiquarian book business.

•  Willems 313; Rahir 284; European Americana 629/79; Palau 129562; Sabin 38560; Borba de Moraes (2nd ed.), Bibliographia brasiliana, I, 450.   Recased in contemporary Dutch vellum over paste boards. Red leather spine label, abraded and sunned. Tiny pin-type wormhole in margin of first three leaves, and silverfish damage to final blank and rear privilege leaf, costing a few letters of the privilege, but not impairing sense. Ownership inscription at base of title-page has been inked through. A clean decent copy of this nice little book.  (24335)

Las Casas, the first great historian of the New World, arrived in Cuba in 1502 and spent most of the ensuing years in the Caribbean and Mexico until his return to Spain in 1547, so his arguments are based on personal observation and not on Aristotelian theory, as were Sepúlveda’s. He had witnessed first hand the destruction of the American Indian population via the diseases the Spaniards brought with them and through mistreatment and war, things he continually fought against as a priest. After his return to Spain and throughout his old age, he launched a series of attacks on Spanish policy. He engineered the publication of his arguments against Sepúlveda in a series of nine tracts printed in Seville in 1552 and 1553. The first, and most famous, of these tracts was the Brevissima relacion de la destruycion de las Indias, which describes the numerous wrongs inflicted upon the Indians, mainly in the Antilles.

This is first edition of Bartolomé de las Casas's third tract advocating the better treatment of Amerindians by the Spanish. In it he offers 20 detailed suggestions for the better treatment of the natives, including such basics as that they should be secure in their homes. He also flat out calls for the end of the encomienda system and for the placing of all Indians under the direct protection of the crown. All of the tracts are of great significance, both for their immediate effect in reforming the Spanish colonial system to some degree, and as an extremely early example of European concern with the human rights of native people.

The text is printed in gothic (i.e., “black letter”) as was the custom for “legal” and religious texts. The title-page is printed in red and black, with the text surrounded by a four-panel woodcut border.

Evidence of readership: A half dozen contemporary annotations and textual corrections.

•  Alden & Landis, European Americana, 552/9; Sabin 11229; Medina, BHA, 146. Church 89; JCB (3), I, 169; Index Aurel. 132.872; Palau 46942. Full modern deep claret-colored morocco. Round spine with raised bands, each of which is accented above and below by gilt beading. Gilt center devices in blank spine compartments, others with author and title information in gilt lettering. Covers tooled in gilt with rules and rolls forming concentric panels. Gilt corner devices. Marbled endpapers. Minor instances of soiling on title-page, two areas of verso of title-page reinforced. Minor age-toning and soiling, top portion of a few leaves brown-stained. Lower corners of leaves c8 & f4 lacking, restored; nine letters supplied in manuscript facsimile on c8 and four on f4. Lacks final blank leaf. A good copy, untattered.

Click the interior image for an enlargement.

Provenance:  Old signatures of Eustace Barron and Louis Despres, fils.

•  Publisher's blue diced paper–covered boards, worn and partly discolored; foxing. Signatures as above. Housed in a cloth clamshell case.  (20508)

•  All documents on stamped paper. Excellent condition. Binding with light abrasion to edges; gilt on the silver closures partially perished. A handsome, significant production.