
THE
INQUISITION
[
]
An AFRICAN Utopia, as
Described to the INQUISITION
[Berington, Simon]. The adventures of Signor Gaudencio di Lucca. Being the substance of his examination before the fathers of the Inquisition at Bologna, in Italy: Giving an account of an unknown country in the midst of the deserts of Africa, the origin and antiquity of the people, their religion, customs, and laws. Copied from the original manuscript in St. Mark’s Library, at Venice. With critical notes by the learned Signor Rhedi. To which is prefixed, a letter of the secretary of the Inquisition, shewing the reasons of
Signor Gaudentio's being apprehended, and the manner of it. Translated from the Italian. Philadelphia: Re-printed by William Conover, 1799. 12mo (18 cm; 7.125"). 320 pp.
[SOLD]
Click the images for enlargements.
Originally published in 1737 under the title Memoirs of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca, this work was “[o]ften and erroneously ascribed to Bishop Berkeley” (Halkett & Laing, 2nd ed.); it is now generally attributed to Berington, a Catholic priest.
“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)
PLEASE NOTE ALSO
THE NEXT ITEM:



Literary Bad Boy Gets Cleaned Up; Remains Popular
Franco, Niccolò; Girolamo Giovannini da Capugnan, ed. Dialoghi piacevolissimi di Nicolò Franco da Benevento. Vinegia: Presso Altobello Salicato, 1590. 8vo (14.8 cm, 5.8"). [8], 148 ff.
$750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
First Catholic-approved edition of Franco's Dialogi piacevoli. During the Counter Reformation, most of the “ingrato e faticoso lavoro” (as described by the Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani) of censoring texts that the Church found objectionable was carried out anonymously; Dominican priest and prolific editor Giovannini was one of the few whose name was associated with his work. His expurgated productions achieved notable success — this title alone was republished in six other editions by 1609.
Author Franco (1515–70) led quite the interesting life first as Pietro Aretino's secretary and then as his nemesis, before being hanged by the Inquisition, though the present radically altered version of his work might suggest otherwise. Ugo Rozza reports that Giovannini chose to omit Franco's eulogy for Erasmus and, further, that the “rewriting was a travesty of Franco's thought: the explicit anti-Roman polemic in the original was
perverted into an apologia for doctrine and for the most orthodox sentiments” (“Italian Literature on the Index,” Church, Censorship and Culture in Early Modern Italy). Indeed, in a twist showing how radically confusing to readers and “the record” censorship could be, Giovannini's revisions here were so extensive that he later decided to publish the work under his own name rather than Franco's!
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)
DEATH of a Grand Inquisitor
(Inquisition). Solemnes exequias celebradas en la Santa Iglesia de Salamanca y Real Seminario de San Carlos en la translacion del cadaver del excmo. sr. don Felipe Bertran, obispo de Salmanca, inquisidor general caballero prelado gran cruz de la real y distinguida orden española de Carlos III. Mexico: Imp. del Br. Don Joseph Fernandez Jauregui, 1791. 4to (20.5 cm; 8.135"). [9] ff., xlvi, xxvi pp., [2] ff.
$650.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Sole Mexican edition of the official account of the funeral and ceremonies on the death of Bishop Felipe Bertran, the Inquisitor General of Spain.
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)

Popular Golden Age Writer — POPULAR Love Stories!
Lozano, Cristóbal. Soledades de la vida y desengaños del mundo, novelas exemplares. Madrid: a costa de Francisco Medel, [1722]. 4to (21 cm; 8.25"). [4] ff., 378 [i.e., 376] pp.
$1250.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Golden Age writer Cristobal Lozano (1609–67) was a priest, doctor in theology, commisar of the Holy Crusade and of
the Holy Office, and a friend of Calderon de la Barca and of Juan Pérez de Montalbán. He left a goodly corpus that includes novels, poetry, and plays, all reflecting or studying in one degree or another the concerns of Counter-Reformation Spain. Themes include purity of blood, student life, and the status and roles of women in society.
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)

Predicting an Enlightened Future: Pre-Revolutionary French Science Fiction
Mercier, Louis-Sébastien. L'an deux mille quatre cent quarante. Rêve s'il fút jamais; suivi de L'homme de fer, songe. Nouvelle édition avec figures. [Amsterdam: Changuion?], 1787. 8vo (19.7 cm, 7.75"). [4], 251, [5], 240, [6], 203, [3] pp.; 3 plts.
$700.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Mercier's utopian novel, originally published in 1771 and set in the far-off future of 2440, prophesies an advanced, progressive Paris (and indeed an entire world) in which slavery has been abolished and education, medicine, religion, politics, and the justice system have all been reimagined and reformed, while women have been cured of coquetry (along with the pains of childbirth and the desire to marry for love!). The “brave” Americans are particularly cited for having advanced the causes of liberty and republicanism, with
Philadelphia being praised among their “cités les plus belles, les plus florissantes" (III, 31).
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 and
forbidden 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 this
one 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 Inquisition Addresses
ENGLISH-Speaking Residents & Transients
in the Viceroyalty of New Spain
Mexico. Inquisition. [drop-title] Nos los inquisidores apostólicos contra la heretica pravedad, y apostasia en esta cuidad, y arzobispado de Mexico, y en todos los reynos, y provincias de esta Nueva España, Goatemala, Islas Filipinas, sus distritos y jurisdicciones, por autoridad apostolica, real, y ordinaria ... [p. 3 begins] A Short abridgement fo [sic] Christian Doctrine ... [Mexico: 1787]. Small 8vo (14.5 cm: 5.75"). 41, [1 (blank) pp.
$15,000.00
Click the images for enlargements.
THE ONLY BOOK PRINTED IN ENGLISH IN SPANISH AMERICA DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD. Published by the Inquisition with an anxious eye on the increasing numbers of English and Irish resident in and transient through Mexico (especially in the Caribbean, the port of Veracruz, Florida, and even Texas and California) in the second half of the 18th century, the work is a basic Roman Catholic catechism: Despite its Latin title, its questions are printed quite handsomely in italic and the answers in roman, in
English.
A preface in Spanish blazons it that the catechism was to be distributed to all the Inquisition's comisarios, to all curates and missionaries, and “also” to all interpreters of “el Idioma Ingles” in its American jurisdictions. These were to use it with those English-speakers who did not know Spanish but who wished to be instructed in the tenets of the Catholic faith and who wished to “abjure their [religious] errors in order to be united with the family of Our Holy Mother Church.”
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)

The Inquisition & Father Hidalgo's “Manifiesto”
Mexico. Inquisition. Broadside, begins: Sabed: que ha llegado á nuestras manos un proclama del rebelde Cura de Dolores que se titula: 'Manifiesto, que el Señor Don Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla::::,, [sic] haze al Pueblo.” Mexico: no publisher/printer, 26 January 1811. Folio (43.4 cm; 17.125"). [1] p.
$12,500.00
Click the image for an enlargement.
Approximately two months prior to Father Hidalgo's capture by the Royal Forces, the Holy Office issued this decree condemning a publication of the Father of Mexican Independence as seditious, Lutheran, and anti-Catholic. Other writings circulating in manuscript are also condemned: One beginning, “Hemos llegado a la epoca” and ending, “De una Patriota de Lagos” and another beginning,
“Es posible. Americanos!” and ending, “será gratificado con quinientos pesos.” Copies of each were burned by the public executioner and all citizens are warned of the penalties — excommunication and fines — for owning or reading these writings, or failing to denounce those who do.
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)

Inconstancy of Apostasy — Multiple Metamorphoses
Nicholls [a.k.a., Niccols, Nicols], John. A declaration of the recantation of Iohn Nichols (for the space almoste of two yeeres the Popes scholer in the Englishe seminarie or college at Rome) which desireth to be reconciled, and receiued as a member into the true Church of Christ in England ... London: Imprinted by Christopher Barker, 1581. Small 8vo (14.5 cm; 5.75"). [98] ff.
$5750.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Nicholls (1555–84?) was educated at Brasenose but did not take a degree. Instead, he left upon completion of his course work and returned to his native Glamorgan, Wales, where he soon obtained a curacy. In 1577 he left his position, gave up his allegiance to the Church of England, travelled to Rome, and voluntarily submitted himself to the
Inquisition where he formally recanted his Protestantism. He was welcomed warmly into the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1580 was back in England.
He was arrested in Islington, London, sent to the Tower, recanted his Catholicism, became an informer denouncing various Catholics of his acquaintance. His allegiance changed yet again in 1582, in Rouen, where he recanted his most previous recantation and was
very cautiously received back in the Church of Rome. Death came soon after.
“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, Aonio. ... Opera. Ad illam editionem quam ipse auctor recensuerat & auxerat excusa, nunc novis accessionibus locupletata ... Amstelaedami: Apud Henricum Wetstenium, 1696. 8vo (16.5 cm; 6.5"). *8 **4 A-Z8 Aa–Ss8 Tt4 (Tt4 blank); [12] ff., 650, [7] ff.
$450.00
Expressing beliefs contrary to accepted Catholic Church policy or dogma could mean trouble with the Inquisition in the heady times of the Reformation. One could avoid run-ins with the Holy Office by keeping quiet, by not publishing, or by having influential protectors. Aonio Paleario (1503–70) chose to express and even publish beliefs that were sufficiently non-mainstream Catholic that he came to the attention of the Inquisition in Italy three times. The first two instances saw the charges dropped thanks to the intervention of powerful protectors, the third proved fatal, his protectors having died.
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)

A Prince, Accused of Heresy & Lust
Russell, John. Don Carlos; or, persecution. A tragedy, in five acts. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, & Brown, 1822. 8vo (22 cm, 8.7"). xvi, 119, [1] pp.
$175.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Based on Schiller's play (which also served as the basis for Verdi's Don Carlos), this tremendously popular piece portrays Don Carlos as a romantic hero brought down by the machinations of both the power-hungry Spanish Inquisition and his tyrannical father, King Philip II. This is the second edition, following the first of the same year — in fact, the work was so successful that it went through six printings in that year, although contemporary critics were not universally fond of either the text or its actual stage performance. The author, Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, was better known as a reformist politician than as an author, serving twice as Prime Minister. Here he gives a brief overview of the historical circumstances in the preface, although he ruefully admits that “the two main props upon which the following attempt at a play is built, have no solid foundation in history” (p. v): that is to say, the Prince's devoted passion for the Queen (first promised to him, then married to his father), and the malign intervention of the
Inquisition.
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)

Noted Christian Nativist Fans the Flames
Sparry, C. The illustrated Christian martyrology; being an authentic and genuine historical account of the principal persecutions against the church of Christ, in different parts of the world by pagans and papists. Philadelphia: Leary & Getz, 1854. 8vo (23.5 cm; 9.5"). Color frontis., 254 pp., [16] ff. (of publisher's ads), 23 color plts.
$550.00
Click the images for enlargements.
Charles Sparry was a virulent anti-Catholic “reverend,” author or compiler of several anti-Catholic books, editor of the short-lived periodical The North American Protestant magazine or the anti Jesuit, and an accused purveyor of obscene literature.
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 additionally
24 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 of
the genre, “ugly ideas got-up beautifully.” (37226)

A
Manual for Inquisitors
with
Interrogation
Questions
Vilaplana,
Hermenegildo. Enchiridion canonico-morale
de confessario ad inhonesta, & turpia solicitante: nec non de decretis,
& constitutionibus pontificiis ad hoc nefarium crimen exterminandum emanantis.
Mexico: ex typographia editioni Bibliothecae Mexicanae destinata, 1765. 4to
(20 cm; 7.75"). [14] ff., 217 pp.
$1200.00
Click the images for enlargements.
A theological and legal treatise on confessors and confession and the sacrament of penance with the emphasis on abuse of the confessional by priests. Telling a priest one's moral and legal transgressions empowers the weak or corrupt priest to then blackmail the parishioner for money or sex or other “favors.”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)
For CANON LAW, click here.
& for GENERAL CATHOLICA, click here.
Click here
for a database including 
not in PRB&M's
illustrated catalogues . . .
keyword,
e.g. = INQUISI, HOLY OFFICE,
SANTO TRIBUNAL
. . .
probably
excepting
the word,
INQUISITIVE!

Or, GO TO
OUR NEWEST ARRIVALS!
All material © 2021
The Philadelphia Rare Books & Manuscripts Company, LLC
 |
PRB&M/SessaBks |
 |
PLACE AN ORDER | E-MAIL US | GO (BACK) TO TOPIC/INTEREST TABLE