Click the image for an enlargement.

Rare: We locate only the copy at the Bancroft Library.

•  Folded, as issued. A slim wormtrack in the foremargin, not touching any text; one pin-type wormhole in the text touching or costing one letter on each page. Clean, a nice copy.  (25814)

•  Sutro 902. Removed from a nonce volume.

Searches of OCLC, RLIN 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.

Click the image for an enlargement.

Uncommon. We trace only three copies in the U.S.

•  Garritz 4724; Sutro, Supplement, 145. Not in Medina, Mexico.   Removed from a nonce volume. Very good condition.  (24785)

The plate is a very fine copper engraving of the viceroy's coat of arms and is signed in the plate “Garcia.” (There is also one handsome headpiece.)

•  Not in Medina, Mexico; not in CCILA; not in Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico Español; not in Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico Mexicano.   Never bound, never stitched; irregular at the lower area of the inner margin of all leaves with rodent-gnawing visible. Light waterstaining in lower inner corners as well. Some finger soiling; light chipping along top edges. Title-page lightly dust-soiled.  (26879)

A long unnoticed feature of this book is that it contains the first bibliography published in the New World.  On signature **iiii recto and verso is a list of “las obras que hasta agora ha impesso el Auctor” (“the works that until now the author has had published”). The list is not in chronological order nor is it alphabetical by title; nonetheless it is a bibliography and supplies us with information now known only because of its inclusion here. Of the 17 items listed, several have failed to survive in any known copy, including the second part of this sermonario — though at the time of publication of this part one, “de la segunda parte esta ya impresso gran pedaço” (“of the second part a large portion is already printed”).

The volume is enhanced by half-page woodcuts: here, Christ's portrait profile on the title-page, St. Andrew with his Cross, St. Anne with the Virgin as infant (appearing twice), and St. Anthony of Padua. The text is in roman with side- and shouldernotes in italic type. Printer López Dávalos employs an interesting set of very large (5 x 5 cm; 2" x 2") foliated woodcut initials throughout the volume.

Provenance:  18th-century signature in a few margins of Carlos Perez; late 19th- or early 20th-century bookplate of Nicolás León; in the collection of the John Carter Brown Library (deaccessioned).

•  Medina, Mexico, 227; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 13; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 342; Viñaza 114; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Nahuatl-21; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 235; Palau 23467; Putick & Simpson 154; Schwaller 11. For biographical information on Bautista, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 104, frames 339–73.   Late 19th-century quarter red Mexican sheep with purple and black mottled paper sides. Title- and following leaf with irregular foremargins, loss of blank areas of old repaired; waterstaining in margins of early leaves. Some worming in text costing letters here and there but not impeding sense for the reader. Last four leaves, one bearing an illustration of the Crucifixion, absent (i.e., from the section of Bible citations used in the sermons); last leaves present a bit chipped/gnawed at lower corners and one fore-edge. Old marca de fuego eradicated from top edge; all edges red and corners elegantly rounded. Some 18th-century marginalia in Spanish explicating words and phrases in the Nahuatl text.  (26393)

This ambitiously designed production is from the press of one of Mexico's famous 17th-century woman printers, the Widow Calderón.

The work ends with a short essay addressed to López de Abiles by Lic. Miguel Sánchez and with anagrams by him as well. Sánchez was the author of Imagen de la Virgen Maria madre de dios de Guadalupe, milagrosamente aparecida en la ciudad de Mexico that had appeared in 1648. As a researcher with considerable knowledge of the Virgin of Guadalupe, he praises López de Abiles in no uncertain terms.

For some unfathomable reason Medina lists this under the extensive half-title — Poeticum viridarium in honorem, laudationem, et obsequium purae admodum ... Mariae: eiusdem dominae miraculosae Mexiceae imaginis de Guadalupe.... — and the cataloguer at the University of Arizona has blindly followed Medina down that road so that the WorldCat record is not findable via the real title.

Rarity: WorldCat locates only one copy worldwide but we know of two others. No additional copies were located via COPAC, Catálogo Colectivo del Patrimonio Bibliográfico, Metabase, or the OPACs of the Spanish National Library, the Mexican National Library, and the British Library.

•  Medina, Mexico, 1016; Andrade 582; Grajales & Burrus, Bibliografia guadalupana, 82.   In later wrappers, a little tattered at the spine. Lacks the half-title and the plate. Top margins of last 10 leaves rodent-gnawed with loss of paper but not of text, although a few letters are touched and the headline words “Segundum Anagramma” lost to that animal. Some light staining, front and rear. In all, a good if damaged copy of an important rarity.  (26413)

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.

Click the images for enlargements.

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)

•  Viñaza 420; García Icazbalceta, Apuntes, 40; Sabin 106013; Palau 142256; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2316. Not in Newberry Library, Ayer Collection.   Stitched in original wrapper; wrappers tattered, torn with some loss, and partly darkened; same for the front free endpaper and fly-leaf. Some dog-earing, and some leaves (including title) with some marginal soiling, but really, a worthwhile copy.  (25558)

Provenance:  Bookplates of Luis and Clotilde Montt (Chilean collectors) and of the John Carter Brown Library (deaccessioned).

•  Medina, Mexico, 1376; Palau 144367; Beristain, II, 198; Leclerc 1190. On Luzuriaga, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 534, frames 77–81.   19th-century quarter brown sheep with black leather spine labels lettered in gilt; black and white marbled paper sides. Without the plate and one leaf in the preliminaries; last three leaves of the index damaged with loss in the foremargins, costing a few words and letters; title-page soiled and with several old tears very well-repaired of old; stains occasionally, never bad ones. Withal a rather good copy of a very uncommon work of New World Mariology.  (26392)