April Catalogue Review Book Collecting: Seeking a Southern Exposure

Here then are a few of his items:

1611 EXTREMELY SCARCE
11) LEON, M. DE. Camino del Cielo en lengua Mexicana, con todos los requisitos necesarios para conseguir este fin. Mexico, Imprenta de Diego Lopez y Davalos, 1611.
_{8vo; contemporary full vellum; title and first folio restored.

First edition, very rare. Fr. Martin de Leon, natural of the New Spain, died in the early XVIIth century, his date of birth being unknown. According to Beristain, he was “extremely wise and eloquent in the Mexican language and was very devoted to the Indians’ spiritual health”. The work has a large Catechism in Mexican and a Mexican Calendar in Spanish; it also has a Confessional in the Mexican language.Illustrated with a wooden vignette of a Confessor, an angel and the devil. The vocabularies and American catechisms in Indian language are rare and sought after.

* Palau 135423, BM 4045 (missing the first 2 pages); Sabin 40080; Medina, Mexico, 260.

U$ 8500}

1616 VERY RARE INDIAN CATECHISMS PUBLISHED IN LIMA, 1616
12) TORRES RUBIO, DIEGO. Arte / de la Lengua / Aymará / Compuesto por el Padre / Diego de Torres Rubio de la / Compañía de Jesús...[with](JOSE DE ACOSTA, P.) Catecismo / en la Lengua Española y Aymará del Pirú…. Lima, Francisco del Canto, 1616.
_{2 vols with correlative signatures; 12vo; old vellum. First part: “Arte”: 97 folios + 1 unnumbered folio; Second part: "Catecismo” 49 folios.

Father P. Diego de Torres Rubio was born in 1547 in Alcázar de Consuegra, Toledo Archbishopric, in Castilla la Vieja. He studied in Valencia, where in 1566, at the age of 19, was welcomed to the Compañía de Jesús. He was brought to Peru in 1577 by a mission led by Father José Teruel. In Lima he was conferred the orders of the presbytery and immediately sent to the Colegio de Potosí, where he focussed on the study of the Aymara language. Later on he undertook for some time the charge of Rector of the Colegio de Potosí, until he died in 1638, at the age of 91 years and 72 years as a Jesuit. The work we are offering is of extraordinary rarity. Our copy is absolutely complete, following Jose Toribio Medina’s detailed description. There are two different issues of the “Arte de la Lengua Aymara”, both with a title page dated 1616. Whereas Medina and Sabin describe the issue we have: Leclerc, Palau and Viñaza describe another issue with a different pagination. The second work, “Catecismo en lengua Española y Aymará” is described only by Medina. The rest of the bibliographies do no mention it, so apparently this “Catecismo” supplemented this issue only. It is not mentioned in the two copies described at OCLC either. It should be highlighted that “Catecismo” has correlative signatures with “Arte”, and thus it is absolutely clear that they have been published together, both in Lima. “Catecismo” is a Lima reprint of that published by Father Jose de Acosta in Seville, 1604. It must have been added to Torres Rubio’s work as it also deals with the Aymara language. All the copies described in the above-mentioned bibliographies, either from one issue or the other, are incomplete: Medina’s copy lacked page 10 of “Catecismo”, Leclerc’s copy (another issue) lacks the title page and several other pages, whereas the copy described by Sommervogel (according to Palau) lacked the title page. A true bibliographic finding, both works in perfect preservation state, absolutely complete. ---* Sabin 96267 (same issue): “see Viñaza´s “Bibliografía española de lenguas indígenas de América”, 1892, Nº 144, for another issue of the same year without continuous pagination for the various parts. According to Medina´s “Imprenta en Lima”, vol 1, Nº 69 a copy of the issue we describe, in the Biblioteca Nacional in Lima, was issued with “ Catecismo en lengua Española, y Aymará del Pirú” , Seville, 1604. He thought that as the signatures were “correlatives” the Catecismo was probably a Lima reprint of a work originally printed in Seville "---Medina, Lima, No 69 (same issue, missing p. 10 from the “Catecismo”): “The issue described is exceptionally interesting. At the beginning we thought “Catecismo” must have been “added” to our copy from the Lima edition of “Arte”, but in view of the correlative signatures, we have convinced ourselves that it was actually a Lima reprint of the book from Seville. So, “Arte” would be the first edition and “Catecism”, the third.” (B01A000318)

* Leclerc, Nr 2120 (other issue, same date) Viñaza, Lenguas indígenas de America, Nr 144 (other issue, same date) Palau 337263 (describing both issues) and 337257 for the “Catecismo”.OCLC: 2 copies (Princeton & Wisconsin) (the other issue).

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April Catalogue Review Book Collecting: Seeking a Southern Exposure

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