Click the image at left, for an enlargement.

This map depicts the parishes of San Francisco Tlapanzingo, Tlachichilco, and Ygualtepec in the Mixtec region of Puebla, Mexico, extending north into the current state of Mexico. The map also shows various still-extant towns (including Huehuetitlán), others then-extant and gone now, various ranchos or haciendas, a number of smaller villages, and the now extinct river Guacapa (a pestilential black water canal in modern times). The map is accomplished in red, green, yellow, brown, and grey. The lettering is precise and the whole very appealing.

•  Very good condition. Two small abrasions in map area with minuscule loss. Clearly once tipped into a volume of manuscripts or other documents.

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.

This popular work was first published in 1688 (or possibly 1685).

•  Palau 357046; Medina, Mexico, 10530.   20th-century Mexican black mottled binding, gilt extra on covers, with gilt inner dentelles; marbled endpapers. Old private ownership stamp on title-page. Occasional spotting.  (23965)

In this manuscript he grants Maria Verdugo three caballerías of land in “el monte del pueblo de Quaguacan [sic, for Cuahuacan], terminos de Tlalnepantla.” The specific location is given as are the names of the property-holders bordering her grant.

•  Paper uniformly age-toned; mounted on a later, larger sheet of laid paper. Some chipping at the edges of the document with loss of a few letters. Written in a very clear notarial hand in black ink. Signature unaffected and bold.  (24527)

Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.

At the end of this highly important and extremely rare grammar are found a comprehensive index, a short catechism, and instructions on the commandments and the sacraments of the Catholic Church, beingall in Nahuatl. Part One of the text expresses Vetancurt's important insight that Nebrija's classical, early-16th-century paradigm for the study of European languages, specifically Latin and Spanish, had its shortcomings when applied to the major New World language under scrutiny—though in the end he resigns himself to using that five-part organization, which was the one most familiar to his readers.

We note that virtually all bibliographies have failed to state that leaf E1 is misfolioed as 14 (it should be 15 and the error is not corrected subsequently), and that leaf H4 is misfolioed as 19 (that error not affecting the subsequent numbering).

Provenance: Marca de fuego of an unidentified Mexican conventual library.

•  Viñaza 204 (failing to note error in foliation, as do all bibliographies except Graff); Medina, Mexico, 1103; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Nahuatl 237; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 80; León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2816; Sabin 99385; Pilling 4002. Graff 4475 (this copy; giving correct collation). On the marcas de fuego, see: Sala, Marcas de fuego, pp. 28 and 39. On Vetancurt, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 118, frames 17–36 and 73–74. Contemporary limp vellum, shrunken and cockled, missing pieces along fore-edge of front cover and at base of spine. Some burn holes at tops of some pages resulting from embers’ straying during the branding of the book. Inner margins with expanded openings and occasional tearing around the sewing stations (i.e., paper has suffered from tight binding). Lacks two preliminary leaves containing approbations. Some foxing; last leaf (only) with foremargin insect-eaten. Text of the grammar complete. A significant work seldom acquirable.

In 1678 Capt. Urrutia petitioned the archbishop-viceroy of Mexico, Fray Payo de Rivera Enríquez (usually given in modern histories as Payo Enríquez de Rivera), to be confirmed in the post. In consultation with the king, the archbishop-viceroy confirms him.

Two documents bear the signature and paper-over-wax seal of Archbishop-Viceroy Enríquez de Rivera, one bears the signature and paper-over-wax seal of Viceroy Albuquerque, and another document has a stamped signature of the king.

•  Sewn into a velvet binder with green silk ties. One of the archbishop’s wax seals is deteriorated with loss of text and paper. Else all in very good condition.

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Written in a clear hand and with the integral blank leaf. Paper good and document attractive.  (21767)

Although touted as “Primera parte” on the title-page, there were no further parts; this Historia is complete, “all published.”

•  Palau 366681; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2051; Sabin 99643; Leclerc 1546; Salvá 3422; Heredia 3407; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 701/262. On Villagutierre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1019, frames 213–16. 19th-century Spanish sheep (“pasta española”), covers abraded and with pinhole-type worming to spine; loss of lower inch of spine leather to insects. Browning to text due to impurities in water during paper manufacture. Small insect damage to margins of first four leaves, not touching any text; similar small damage in inner margins of last four leaves. Over all, a decent copy of a scarce work.

With an engraved frontispiece portrait of Santa Anna,
and numerous in-text engravings as well as seven plates.

•  Publisher's blind-stamped textured cloth, gently worn with discoloration to back cover and gilt-stamped spine faded. Front free endpaper with ownership inscription dated 1856. Front pastedown, free endpaper, and fly-leaf with some staining, otherwise clean.