This document is one of the very few printed in the temporary capital of Mixco, a press having been salvaged from the ruins in the former capital. Thus, Mixco was the second city/town to have a press in Central America, and then, for only a short time—appoximately two years.

In addition to being important for its contents and in the realm of printing history, the González Bustillo report is uncommon: We trace only half a dozen copies in U.S. libraries.

•  Medina, Guatemala, 384; Palau 105113; Sabin 27811. Modern full calf, very plain style. Without the final leaf with one erratum on it.  (13841)

•  Medina, Mexico, 11697; Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 3585; Sutro 112; Steele 12. Folded, never bound. Minor worming affecting a few letters. Writing in pencil on first page. (3905)

Only 210 copies were printed: Florencio Ramírez composed the text using Dante, Centaur, Poliphilus, and Blado type. Juan Pascoe and Martín Urbgina printed the work on Tamayo De Ponte paper using a Vandercook cylinder press and two Washington handpresses. The work was bound by Fermín Urbina.

The two folding plates are printed in black and red, as is the title-page and the first page of text. Other illustrations are an Antonio Espinosa vignette, a woodcut of a kneeling Mexica man, and two printer's ornaments. All are printed from zinc plates.

•  Green shelfback with yellow paper spine label and matching yellow paper on the boards. Author and title printed on front board in a frame of printer's ornaments. As new.  (40095)

Further, “[e]ach Oratorian community enjoyed locally autonomous government by their own elected officials, and acquired many of the benefits of both religious and lay corporations without the burden of formal vows, or professional exclusion from religious offices” (Reed). Scholars have noted that Oratorians used preaching to help shape the formation of patriotic culture and historical writing in colonial Mexico.

The author (1676–1740) was a member of the order and had served as its provost. He dedicated this work to Archbishop and Viceroy Juan Antonio de Vizarron, y Eguiarreta, whose coat of arms appears in a woodcut on the recto of the leaf following the title-leaf. The title-page is printed in black and red and has a woodcut of the “logo” of the Mexico City Oratory. The text is printed in double-column format in roman and italic, with head- and tailpieces and woodcut initials.

The tome comes from the shop ofone of Mexico's famous widow printers, Maria de Rivera — daughter and granddaughter of other woman printers (her mother Maria de Benavides, her grandmother Paula de Benavides). This three generations of women printers spanned the period 1641–1754 and printed 860 known books, sermons, pamphlets, and broadsides.

The Mexican engraverJose Antonio Amador provided a full-page plate, which a cataloguer at the John Carter Brown Library describes as “A priest [Saint Philip Neri?] wearing a biretta and holding a flower stand[ing] on clouds, flanked by angels. Below him is a group of priests [Oratorians] who carry a book, birettas, and rosary. One angel throws flowers down on the priests while holding a rosary, the other holds a sacred heart and a book.”

Provenance:  Marca de fuego in upper edges of an unidentified Oratorian monastery

In all, a very important book for its text, illustration, printer, and genre.

•  Sabin 18778; Medina, Mexico, 3418; Palau 11568; Streit, Bibliotheca missionum, III, 389; Lathrop C. Harper, Three catalogues of Americana, II, 333; Benjamin Reed, “Devotion to Saint Philip Neri in Mexico City, 1659-1821" (digital repository, University of New Mexico).   Modern quarter brown leather with red and green title and author labels to spine; handsome blind tooling with gilt accents. Text with variably light old waterstaining to leaves' lower half nearly throughout and occasionally another sort of spot or blot; yeta copy that impresses one as clean and crisp.  (36013)

Hall's journal was first published in 1824; the present fifth edition was the second volume issued in the "Constable's miscellany of original and selected publications in the various departments of literature, science, & the arts" series. The text has been expanded from the second edition.

•  Sabin 29718; Palau 112072 (first ed.). Contemporary half calf over marbled paper sides, spine ruled in double gilt fillets with gilt-stamped devices in compartments; worn and abraded with leather cracking over spine, and joints cracked but holding, Lacking map. Front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription. First and last few pages lightly spotted.  (3436)

This is a fine, extremely early example of Father Hidalgo's signature.

The woman who provided the money for the above mentioned masses was the wife of Antonio de Vivano (also spelled Bibano) Gutiérrez and mother of Antonio Guadalupe de Vivano, the first two Condes de Vivanco. Cambridge scholar David Brading credits Antonio de Vivanco with restoring the mining region of Bolaños to prosperity in the early 1770s, following the region's sharp decline in silver ore production during the first two-thirds of the 18th century — whereby he became very wealthy.

In addition to payment for masses for her soul, Doña Augustina's will provides for large sums of money to be spent on construction work on the chapel of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the bishopric of Guadalajara. The paperwork, including receipts, associated with the distribution of her largesse is weighty and detailed.

Among the collateral documents in this offering are copies of the last wills and testaments of Antonio de Vivanco Gutiérrez (1796), Augustina Velázquez (1780), and Antonio Guadalupe de Vivanco (1800); the inventory of the younger Vivanco's massive estate (1801); and a marvelouscalligraphic manuscript in which the bishop of Guadalajara grants a special privilege to Vivanco the elder. All are notarially certified copies of the originals.

•  All documents in very good condition, sewn, in contemporary vellum bindings.  (3731)

•  Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 1165; Medina, Mexico, 10591. Plain wrappers, lacking the engraved plan (which, though it is called for in the bibliographies, we have never seen in any copy in trade). Excellent copy.

•  Sutro 902. Removed from a nonce volume.  (4778)

Printed on two sheets precisely glued together to form a seamless whole, in double-column format and with the woodcut seal of the Inquisition in the lower right corner of the lower edge.

Garritz located only the copy in the Biblioteca Nacional and WorldCat locates only seven U.S. institutions holding copies.

•  Garritz, Impresos novohispanos, 1137. Not in Palau; Medina, Mexico; Ziga & Espinosa, Adiciones a la imprenta en Mexico; González de Cossío, 510, or González de Cossío, Cien.   Old folds; a few small wormholes touching or costing a very few letters and one larger hole costing five letters, but not impeding reading sense. Slight discoloration along the area where the two sheets are pasted together and at points on vertical fold.  (34599)

WorldCat locates only six U.S. libraries reporting ownership.

•  Medina, Mexico, 8139; Palau 317550.   Original plain wrappers, front one lacking. Light dust-soiling. Very good copy.  (28210)

Searches of OCLC 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. (10727)

The LEC illustrations consist of 8 full-page and 41 in-text color drawings by Everett Gee Jackson (no relation to the author), who also signed the colophon. Saul Marks designed the book, selecting a monotype Bembo font with the chapter titles printed in red ink, and the printing was done by Saul and Lillian Marks at The Plantin Press, Los Angeles.

Binding:  In an attractive full woven fabric derived from a striated Native American design, with a colorful paper spine label.

This is numbered copy 972 of 1500 printed; the appropriate LEC newsletter is laid in.

•  Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 298.   Binding as above in original slipcase, volume spine label slightly darkened, slipcase showing only minimal wear and with a spot or two of darkening to front panel. A very nice copy.  (30117)

Provenance:  Front pastedown with bookplate of Arthur K. Brewer.

•  BAL 10842 (first ed. only).   Publisher's cloth, front cover stamped in black and red, spine stamped in black and gilt, with very minor rubbing to extremities. Front pastedown with bookplate.An excellent, attractive copy of a very attractive little production.  (13540)

Public works and land use are traditionally fraught with concern and intransigence on the part of the various parties involved, and in the Cuban case at hand, this was certainly so; the Junta had appointed a four-member committee “para meditar los arbitrios que conceptuasen mas oportunos y menos gravosos para la formacin de caminos” (“to decide the tax rates that will be least burdensome but still will bring about the most timely creation of [good] roads”). Jáuregui's opinion was clearly and concisely expressed and shows a progressive tax structure differentiating users of the roads and the wear each category was most likely to create.

Handsomely printed on extremely good quality paper.

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, COPAC, CCPB, and the OPACs of the national libraries of Mexico and Spain locate only three copies: two in the U.S. and one in Chile. One of the U.S. copies is incomplete. How many copies may be in Cuban libraries is unknown.

•  Sabin 35823; Trelles, Bibliografía cubana de los siglos XVII y XVIII (2nd ed.), 166; Medina, Habana, 130.   A fine copy in original plain wrappers. Housed in a quarter dark red morocco clamshell case.  (34735)

Information provided extends back into the colonial era.

•  Sutro 890. Removed from a nonce volume.  (3759)

•  Sutro 838. Removed from a nonce volume.  (3794)

•  Sutro 841. Removed from a nonce volume.  (3795)

•  Sutro 887. Removed from a nonce volume.  (3977)

The work is handsomely printed (although erratic in its pagination and signature markings), in double-column format, featuring title-pages in black and red with an engaging small engraved vignette of a ship between pillars reading “Plus” and “Ultra.”

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of Carlos Sanz in several places.

•  Sabin 40053; Palau 135738; Alden & Landis 737/135; Medina, BHA, 3071; Borba de Moraes, II, 150; LeClerc 872.   Contemporary vellum over pasteboards, a little soiled especially to spnes, retaining button and loop closures; hinges (inside) open in a few places but bindings strong. Occasional waterstain or other sign of exposure to dampness; a few gutter margins (only) of first volume with a short wormtrack; some cockling of paper.  (34810)

This uncommon text is dated as having been issued 5 March 1803. Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only three U.S. institutions reporting ownership: UTexas, DLC, UC-Berkeley.

•  Medina, Mexico, 9605.   Sewn, in “wallpaper” polychromatic (orange, blue-green, yellow, white) wrappers. Creased at midpoint horizontally a long time ago; all corners dog-eared. Pencilled “dup” in upper margin of p. 1. A rumpled but complete copy in a very interesting wrapper.  (39467)

•  Palau 141001; Sabin 14210.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties, front joint (inside) starting to open. Scattered foxing, including on title-page; short tear, repaired, in title; some staining in early margins and into text; without the preliminaries or the added engraved title. Doodling in many margins; ink stains from a careless quill user on several pages. John Carter Brown's stamped signature on p. 1. A less than perfect copy that yet does not “feel” maimed; a copy with a distinguished provenance to match the distinction of the work.  (27561)

The Historia general de las Indias (first published in 1552) is divided into two parts which stand on their own although clearly written as two parts of a whole. Part I is a history of events concerning the discovery and conquests of the New World exclusive of those involving Cortés. Part II is entirely dedicated to the telling of Cortés's role in the conquest of Mexico and subsequent discoveries.

In this Italian translation from the pen of Agostino di Cravaliz, López's “all-Cortés” volume stands as part III of the three-volume Historia, delle nuove Indie Occidentali, with parts I and II being translations of Cieza de Leon's Historia, over Cronica del gran regno del Peru and the previously mentioned part I of Gómara's Historia general de las Indias.

The text here is printed in italic type except the capitals, which are roman. The title-page is printed in roman and italic and has the woodcut printer's device.

•  Alden & Landis 564/25; Sabin 27741; Medina, BHA, 159n; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 2v.   18th-century vellum over paste boards, soiled and a bit rubbed; red leather spine label, with a chip, and an old circular paper shelf-label. Title-page dust-soiled, mounted; small, narrow, oblong portion of blank area of title-page excised and filled in at an early time. Lacks folio 1 and final blank. Top margins closely trimmed, sometimes costing the running heads and folio numbers.  (25767)

The text here is printed in italic type except the capitals, which are roman. Leaves 292–96 containa brief study of Nahuatl and include lists of numbers, months, days, and years in that language.

Binding:  American signed binding by Coombs of Providence, R.I., for John Carter Brown (ca. 1865), with his binder's ticket. Full red morocco, round spine, raised bands; author, title, place and date of publication in gilt on spine; gilt roll on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. All edges gilt. Gilt supra-libros of John Carter Brown on front cover.

Provenance:  Ownership stamp of John Carter Brown on first leaf of preliminaries, supra-libros as above. On his death to his son John Nicholas Brown (1861–1900). On his death deeded to the John Carter Brown Library. Deaccessioned 2008.

•  Alden & Landis 560/28; Sabin 27739; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 2t; Medina, BHA, 159n. This edition not in H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, but see 1692.   Binding as above. Lacks the title-leaf; (therefore) first leaf of preliminaries with a John Carter Brown's personal ownership stamp and his bookplate on front pastedown. Waterstaining, barely visible in many margins and lightly across text in last half. Four leaves with very old scribbling (pen trials?) in margins. A treasure with a distinguished provenance, presenting itself in the classic fashion of a 19th-century “collector's copy.”  (28914)

Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate only one copy worldwide — at the John Carter Brown Library.

•  Not in Medina, Puebla; Gavito, Adiciones a la Imprenta en la Puebla; not CCILA.   Folded once longitudinally, otherwise, as printed. Crisp copy.  (40408)