Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, covers and spine heavily gilt-stamped with arabesque designs featuring color-stamped portions in blue, red, yellow, green, and white. Bright yellow endpapers, all edges gilt.

•  Binding as above, extremities rubbed, spine sunned to a pleasant olive. Sewing starting to loosen in some spots. Back free endpaper recto (not the yellow side!) with inked numerals and small rubber-stamp; light staining intermittently, not affecting the plates (which are both lovely and in lovely condition).  (26982)

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)

Present are the following works: De disciplina claustralium, Soliloquium, Sermonum prima pars, Sermonum secunda pars, Sermonum tertia pars, Sermones IX, Dialogus novitiorum, Eiusdem epistolae, De paupertate humilitate & patientia, De vera compunctione cordis, Hortulus rosarum, Vallis liliorum, Manuale parvulorum, Doctrinale iuvenum, and Hospitale pauperum. The volume ends with a brieflife of the author.

The colophon reads: “Venetijs per Dominum Bernardinum Stagninum de Tridino Montifferrati. Anno Domini. M.D.XXXVI.”

Scarce: OCLC locates only the copy at the Folger Library.

•  BM, STC Italian, 323.; Adams K17.   18th-century vellum over paste boards, charcoal-colored leather gilt spine label. Title-page damaged with loss of foremargin and area below title-page woodcut, taking imprint (which is here supplied from the colophon); loss very neatly and almost imperceptibly replaced with “matching” paper. Volume very clean, very solid, and very rare.  (23329)

The Franciscans are permitted to 1) preach (to those who wish to listen) in their monasteries, the public squares, and “other public” areas of the city, but not in the parish churches; 2) hear confessions from all Christians, those who have confessed to a friar no longer having to reconfess to a diocesan priest; 3) administer the holy sacraments, including communion, only after receiving specific licence from the diocese to do so; 4) say mass on Sundays and high holy days for any and all who wish to attend; and 5) accept for burial in their monasteries the bodies of any and all Christians who wish such disposition of their remains. One last clause prohibits the diocesan priests from interfering with the Franciscans' receiving any monies or religious art work or other things specified in the wills of deceased Christians.

•  Written in sepia ink in a clear and rather beautiful ecclesiastical notarial hand, on good quality vellum. Very good condition. Handsome and important.  (26975)

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)

Click the images for enlargements.

This is printed in roman and italic type, the title-page with a double border of printer's ornaments. Adorning the dedication leaf is a woodcut of the coat of arms of the bishop of Valladolid. The text has three large woodcut initials and side- and shouldernotes.

In the U.S., we locate only the copy at the John Carter Brown Library.

•  Medina, Puebla, 204; Beristain, III, 199.   Removed from a nonce volume; closely trimmed at top, affecting some page numbers, type borders, and the word “approbacion” at the top of that leaf. Brown stains variably, as from spilled sacramental oil.  (26395)

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 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)

Click the image for an enlargement.

•  Bound in a vellum wrapper handsomely indited on the front with two abstracts of the contents, writen in a fine modified gothic script. The documents' texts are written on paper in a hurried notarial hand, sometimes a little difficult to decipher. A clean, attractive manuscript.  (26980)

Provenance:  Augustinian monastic library of Morelia (marca de fuego on upper edge of closed book; on verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand: “pertenece al convento de San Augustin de Valladolid”); private use of Fr. Manuel Aigustin Farias (noted on the verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand, prelim. p. 12, first p. 1); later owned by José Martín de Infanzón (prelim. p. 9).

•  Medina, Mexico, 1684; Palau 361217; Sabin 99386; Andrade 1073; Tovar de Teresa, Bibliografía novohispana de arte, 105; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 68.   Early vellum over boards, rebacked; new endpapers and title-page backed for strength. Stray stains and ink markings variously, the latter in margins; minor worming in some lower margins, with waterstaining notable in the final section and a brown stain perhaps of another nature in upper gutter-ward areas of the same section, sometimes into text. Final six leaves with loss of lower outer corner, including some text; paper replaced and text in excellent facsimile. Volume now housed in a quarter blue morocco tray case with gilt spine.  (26824)

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.

This is an original edition, not a facsimile reprint.

Binding:  Publisher's light blue cloth, front cover pictorially stamped in black and gilt with scene of an angel holding a chain and the key to the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1), spine decoratively stamped in black and gilt.

•  Binding as above, cocked, spine slightly sunned, corners and spine extremities with minor rubbing; small smudge to outer upper edge of front cover. Front pastedown with inked inscription dated 1916. A few corners dog-eared; four pages with offsetting from now-absent laid-in items, pages otherwise clean. All edges marbled.  (25796)

•  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.

The engraved frontispiece was done by Philipp Jacob Leidenhoffer after a design by Johann Asem; one of the engraved in-text emblems attributes its design to “I.C. Banaivir,” about whom no information could be found, while the others are unsigned.

The title-page bears an inked inscription reading “SanCto MarCo / In aVgIa DIVIte,” dated 1714; a few small scraps of paper with notes in an early inked hand are laid in.

•  Landwehr, German, 660; Praz 543. Contemporary mottled sheep, covers framed in blind triple fillets, spine thickly blind-stamped with arabesque motifs; binding rubbed and abraded with leather cracked over joints and spine, spine stamping dimmed, and shelving number inked on spine. A few spots of pinhole worming to front cover, front free endpaper, and first few leaves; front pastedown with old bookseller’s ticket. Some pages with light foxing; one leaf with an old repair to the upper corner and one with a short tear from the lower margin. An interesting rarity, and one worthy of study.