“Gaudentio,” under persecution by the Inquisition, reveals his fantastic voyages and travels through Egypt and an imaginary African land. While constantly assuring the stern inquisitors of his staunch adherence to Catholicism, he gives elaborate, admiring descriptions of the government, religion, and customs of his African utopia, particularly its training and education of women.

Provenance:  Pastedown with contemporary bookplate of James Butler.

•  Evans 35183; ESTC W10142. Not in Parsons; not in Finotti; not in Bowe, List of Additions and Corrections . . . to Parsons.   Contemporary sheep, missing pieces of leather from front cover and top and bottom of spine; spine with nice old red leather gilt label and front cover reattached using Japanese long-fiber method. Silverfish or roach damages to front free endpaper, fly-leaf, and title-page (costing small, small portion of two letters); damage also to lower outer corners of early leaves and upper inner area of leaves to p. 10 of preface with none of this impairing the reader. Age-toned, some foxing, occasional brown spots; an “old book” of the classic sort.  (37157)

Of the two Salicato printings of 1590, this offering is distinguished by a dedication from Giovannini to Annibale Ruccelai instead of the later dedication to Bernardo, Brandimarte, and Bartolomeo Lovaria. The text, in Italian, is neatly printed in single columns using mostly italic and some roman type, with several decorative and historiated initials as well as head- and tailpieces; Salicato's printer's device appears on the title-page.

Provenance:  From the library of American collector Albert A. Howard, small booklabel (“AHA”) at rear.

•  Adams F954; Brunet, II, 1377; EDIT16 CNCE 79848; Graesse, II, p. 628. On Franco & Giovannini, see: Treccani (online).   Rebacked 18th-century speckled calf, spine with gilt-lettered red leather label, raised bands ruled in gilt, covers framed in gilt double fillets; extremities rubbed, original leather showing fine cracks, free endpapers chipped (with a few pencilled notations). All edges speckled red. Light age-toning and mostly faint marginal waterstaining, a few other stains; four leaves with uneven edges or marginal paper flaws from manufacture. Booklabel as above, evidence of partially removed bookseller label; title-page with small ink dashes, five leaves with mostly illegible ink notes (occasionally offsetting) in an early hand. Intriguing, particularly in comparison with Franco's original.  (39319)

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)

the Holy Office

Soledades de la vida y desengaños del mundo was first published in Madrid in 1658 and was reprinted m any times in the subsequent decades, attesting to its continued popularity during the “Edad de Oro.” Essentially a miscellany, it is composed of two distinct parts, the Soledades and the Persecuciones de Lucina, dama valenciana, y tragicos sucessos de Don Carlos. The first is essentially a four-part pastoral novel about love and life while the second is an eight-part novel concerning a pair of young lovers whose parents oppose their friendship with the expected result of the youngsters running away together and having adventures and misadventures.

Provenance:  No individual's name appears, but the title-page is inscribed in an 18th-century hand with the name of a little town in southeast Puebla, Sto. Tomas Hueyotlipan.

•  Not in Palau, but see 142879 for a related 1722 edition.   Recent vellum, old style, with ties. Some gatherings washed; first leaf of text (only) defective with loss of three lines on each side; early leaves with good repairs of tears and irregular margins; signature “S” supplied from a different copy. Some leaves with creasing, some worming in foremargins, and one leaf with a foremarginal burnhole; otherwise, but the very occasional stain here or there. A pleasing copy.  (30535)

An extremely popular work (it went through 25 editions after its first appearance in 1771), the work describes the adventures of an unnamed man, who, after engaging in a heated discussion with a philosopher friend about the injustices of Paris, falls asleep and finds himself in a Paris of the future.

Though condemned by French and Spanish authorities andforbidden by the Inquisition, the work was nonetheless a roaring success in Europe, going through numerous editions in multiple languages — and serving as a groundbreaking, genre-defining example of a futuristic paradise set in a real-world location. The present example is an unidentified imprint of the greatly expanded three-volume text of 1786, followed by Mercier's allegorical L'homme de fer. Wilkie suggests that this “nouvelle édition avec figures" was printed by Changuion in Amsterdam; each of the three books of the main work opens with its own tipped-in engraved plate, making thisone of the earliest illustrated editions.

•  Wilkie, Mercier's L'An 2440, 1787. Not in Brunet, not in Graesse.   Contemporary mottled sheep, spine with raised bands, gilt-stamped leather title-label, and gilt-tooled compartment decorations; spine and edges much rubbed, with spine extremities chipped. Front and back pastedowns with traces of red wax adhesions; endpapers with offsetting from turn-ins. Minor age-toning throughout; one page with early inked annotation. Though battered, a solid, early, nicely illustrated example of this landmark work.  (38525)

The cataloguer at the Clements library observes of this publication that it is “[p]ossibly the first printing in English in North America beyond the Alleghany [sic] Mts., . . . [and] almost certain[ly] . . . is the first printing in N.A. beyond the Mississippi.”

•  ESTC W41449; Medina, Mexico, 7705.   Sewn. Original plain wrappers, crumpling to corners; glue stains in gutter margins of several leaves. Now in a full, fitted red morocco tray case. In all, a rather good copy very nicely housed.  (40779)

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)

“Nicholls died on the continent in want and, probably, depression, most likely in 1584. He has been condemned by biographers for his want of constancy in what are assumed to be genuine, if bewildering, changes of faith and profession. Yet it may have been the case that there was a kind of cynical consistency in his animal sense of self-preservation, one actively encouraged by the systems of religious repression and polarization under which he managed for a while to operate with some success” (ODNB). He was clearly one of the most troubled figures in the history of Recusancy.

This copy of his Declaration has setting 2 of the title-page, setting 1 of leaf N1r, and setting 1 of L1r (see ESTC). The title-page has a handsome, elaborate woodcut frame/border in a typical “Barker” style; the prefatory “epistola” is printed in italics, the preface in roman, and the text in gothic (i.e., black letter).

Searches of NUC, WorldCat, and ESTC locate only seven U.S. libraries reporting ownership of this, not one a Catholic institution.

Binding:  Signed binding by Bedford. Full sprinkled calf, round spine, raised bands, gilt spine extra. Gilt triple-rule border on both boards; gilt double-rule on board edges; gilt turn-ins including a gilt dentelle rule and a gilt floral vine roll. Red French swirl marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

•  STC (rev. ed.) 18533; ESTC S113205; Franks 6551. Apparently beyond the scope of Allison & Rogers (rev. ed.).   Excellent 19th-century binding as above, lightly rubbed along the joints (outside). Very good.  (37208)

Paleario was at once a creation of the Renaissance and of the Reformation.  He carried on a wide correspondence with the intellectuals of his time, he studied the writings of Luther and Erasmus, and he sought to reconcile the old with the new. This edition of his works is chiefly composed of his letters, but also includes “De Immortalitate Animorum libri III,” and “Poematia.”

•  On Paleario, see: Contemporaries of Erasmus, III, 45–46. Contemporary vellum over boards; bit of abrasion and black speckling in lower area of spine. 18th-century armorial bookplate on front pastedown. Occasional light spotting in text. Notes in pencil on rear endpapers. Rear free endpaper torn with loss of paper in the lower outer area.  (19246)

Provenance:  From the library of Robert L. Sadoff, M.D., sans indicia.

•  NCBEL, III, 1138; NSTC 2R21229.   Contemporary tree calf, covers framed in small floral gilt roll, spine with gilt-stamped red and green leather title and author labels, spine compartments with gilt-stamped floral decorations, board edges and turn-ins with gilt rolls; minor rubbing to spine, joints, and extremities. Light foxing. An interesting piece, in distinguished dress. (39827)

The present martyrology, first printed in 1846, reached seven editions during the 19th century, four of them printed by Leary & Getz, the printing arm of the famous Philadelphia bookstore generally and simply known as “Leary's.” Not unexpectedly, the volume is wildly anti-Cathoic but is also an excellent example of mid-century American bookmaking in its publisher's binding, illustration, and method of printing.

The binding is the publisher's red roan in imitation of morocco. Both covers are gilt-stamped with a triple rule border at the board edges and gilt corner devices; in the center of each board is a gilt vignette of a martyrdom based on one of the plates in the text. All edges are gilt.

The illustrations are wood engravings, mostly unsigned, but a few signed “Lossing.” There are several in-text wood-engraved portraits and there are additionally24 wood-engraved plates (including the frontispiece) that have been hand colored, probably by a stencil method.

The text is printed in double-column format from stereoplates, in roman type, with an interesting six-line capital at the beginning of each chapter.

Provenance:  “Mamie C. Swinton, from 'Aunt Jennie,' August 1870.”

•  Binding as above, rubbed at board edges and joints (outside); top and bottom of spine pulled with loss of leather. Short tears in foremargins of final blank leaves; scattered foxing and some brown spotting. Over all, a good++ copy; a very good representative ofthe genre, “ugly ideas got-up beautifully.”  (37226)

Father Vilaplana (1712–63), a native of Benimarfull, Valencia, Spain, was a Franciscan, a university lecturer in theology, and an “examiner” for the Inquisition. His handbook gives examples of abuses, lays out the pertinent canon laws and papal edicts, and has a section of questions to be asked of accused priests during court proceedings. The work also discusses punishment and other disciplines that the crimes demand.

Since abuse of the confessional fell under the authority of the Inquisition, this work is de facto a manual for Inquisitors.

This is the “Editio secunda locupletior in paucis.” The Bibliotheca Mexicana was the private press of the great bibliographer, writer, and secular cleric Juan Jose de Eguiara y Eguren.

•  Medina, Mexico, 5026; Palau 365782.   Contemporary limp vellum, rodent-gnawed along several edges with a small loss of vellum. Front endpapers with loss to silverfish. Text unwormed and clean.  (29773)