Thiéry de Menonville was an economic spy and his visit to Mexico had one and only one purpose: To learn how to make cochinea. So he learned about the insect, its host plant (the nopal), and the care and nurturing of both; then he smuggled cuttings of the cactus with the insect in residence to Haiti.

His work details not only his trip to Oaxaca to find the plant and bug but also the proven methods of caring for the host and insect. Two handsome, hand-colored folding plates show the cactus in flower and several views of the color-producing creepy-crawly.

•  Wellcome, Medical Americana, H.56; Blake, 18th Century Printed Books in the National Library of Medicine, p. 449; Pritzel 9214; Leclerc 1413; Brunet 6048; Sabin 95349; Palau 331673.   Modern quarter claret-colored morocco, round spine with gilt beading on bands and gilt rules defining the bands; gilt center devices in spine compartments. Natural paper flaws to lower outer corners of five leaves; tear on pp. 113–14, repaired; pp. 241–301 with worm damage, now repaired, and with irregular inner margins with paper loss, repaired and leaves tipped in. Corners in some sections bumped/crumpled; some soiling/spotting (not to the plates); in fact, a decent copy of an increasingly difficult to find important economic treatise.  (26023)

Click the image at left, for an enlargement.

This map depicts the parishes of San Francisco Tlapanzingo, Tlachichilco, and Ygualtepec in the Mixtec region of Puebla, Mexico, extending north into the current state of Mexico. The map also shows various still-extant towns (including Huehuetitlán), others then-extant and gone now, various ranchos or haciendas, a number of smaller villages, and the now extinct river Guacapa (a pestilential black water canal in modern times). The map is accomplished in red, green, yellow, brown, and grey. The lettering is precise and the whole very appealing.

•  Very good condition. Two small abrasions in map area with minuscule loss. Clearly once tipped into a volume of manuscripts or other documents.

In his sermon, Torres discusses the need for and goodness that comes from schools for girls. The text is printed in roman with side- and shouldernotes in italic, and contains two woodcut initials.

Rare: Medina knew of this only from the Andrade copy. WorldCat finds no copies, nor does COPAC; no copy was found via the OPACs of the Spanish National Library and the Mexican National Library. We must wonder if this IS the Andrade copy that was seen by Medina.

•  Medina, Mexico, 1260; Andrade 763.   Modern full red morocco, gilt extra on covers and spine; gilt roll of a chain design on the turn-ins. Partial, unidentified marca de fuego on top and bottom edges. A two-digit number in ink in margin of title-page; an old waterstain curving across the bottom outside page corners, light in front and heavier towards the back. In a neat cloth slipcase.  (25764)

Click the images for enlargements.

This is printed in roman and italic type, the title-page with a double border of printer's ornaments. Adorning the dedication leaf is a woodcut of the coat of arms of the bishop of Valladolid. The text has three large woodcut initials and side- and shouldernotes.

In the U.S., we locate only the copy at the John Carter Brown Library.

•  Medina, Puebla, 204; Beristain, III, 199.   Removed from a nonce volume; closely trimmed at top, affecting some page numbers, type borders, and the word “approbacion” at the top of that leaf. Brown stains variably, as from spilled sacramental oil.  (26395)

Guatemala was the fourth Latin American city to have a printing press (after Mexico, Lima, and Puebla de los Angeles); the press was brought at the instigation of the bishop of Guatemala, Payo Enríquez de Ribera, who wished to have a work of his own published. In reply to the bishop's appeal for a printer, José Pineda Ibarra arrived at Antigua in 1660. He had worked as an assistant to several printers in Mexico, but according to Medina did not have his own press; when Payo de Ribera's representative found him, he had moved to Puebla, but was apparently not doing well there. (Medina does not list him as a printer in Puebla—presumably he was again working for others.) The bishop apparently paid for the press that was taken to Guatemala, and Pineda Ibarra later purchased it from him. Torre Revello (quoted in Furlong) remarks that despite the dearth of materials, Pineda Ibarra managed to print exceedingly well: "Ningún tipógrafo de los que le sucedieron, durante el periodo colonial, logró superar la pulchritud y elegancia de sus trabajos." This example shows not only several sizes of type, but a woodcut of a papal tiara, at the top of the edict, flanked by typographical ornaments; a line of typographical ornament also appears on either side of the date of the edict, near the bottom of the page.

The various religious orders in Guatemala had promised to make it worth the while of a printer to come, by giving him commissions. Judging from the list of over 30 works Pineda Ibarra printed before 1673—eulogies, sermons, constitutions, regulations, descriptions of religious festivities—the orders fulfilled their promise; his major productions, however, were Bishop de Ribera's Explicatio apologetica nonnullarum propositionum . . . , 1663, and Diego Saenz Ovecuri's La Thomasiada, 1667. Also a bookseller and binder, Pineda Ibarra died in 1679. He was succeeded in 1681 by his son, Antonio de Pineda Ibarra, under whom the press operated until 1721.

The text in hand, a papal edict of 23 July 1672, changes the office for St. Peter Nolasco used by Mercedarians from semiduplex to duplex, at the request of the Queen of France. The Orden Real de Nuestra Señora de la Merced, Redemción de Cautivos, was already established in Guatemala (cf. Medina, Guatemala, 38), and probably paid Pineda Ibarra to print this work.

•  Not in Medina, Guatemala; on the printer, see: Medina's introduction, pp. xviii–xx. Not in Valenzuela, Imprenta en Guatemala; O'Ryan, Bib. Guatemalteca; NUC; BMC. See, however, Oswald, p. 539; Furlong, Orígenes, p. 91; and Woodbridge and Thompson, Printing in Colonial Spanish America, pp. 81–84.

This popular work was first published in 1688 (or possibly 1685).

•  Palau 357046; Medina, Mexico, 10530.   20th-century Mexican black mottled binding, gilt extra on covers, with gilt inner dentelles; marbled endpapers. Old private ownership stamp on title-page. Occasional spotting.  (23965)

Click any image where the hand appears on
mouse-over, for an enlargement.

At the end of this highly important and extremely rare grammar are found a comprehensive index, a short catechism, and instructions on the commandments and the sacraments of the Catholic Church, beingall in Nahuatl. Part One of the text expresses Vetancurt's important insight that Nebrija's classical, early-16th-century paradigm for the study of European languages, specifically Latin and Spanish, had its shortcomings when applied to the major New World language under scrutiny—though in the end he resigns himself to using that five-part organization, which was the one most familiar to his readers.

We note that virtually all bibliographies have failed to state that leaf E1 is misfolioed as 14 (it should be 15 and the error is not corrected subsequently), and that leaf H4 is misfolioed as 19 (that error not affecting the subsequent numbering).

Provenance: Marca de fuego of an unidentified Mexican conventual library.

•  Viñaza 204 (failing to note error in foliation, as do all bibliographies except Graff); Medina, Mexico, 1103; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Nahuatl 237; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 80; León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2816; Sabin 99385; Pilling 4002. Graff 4475 (this copy; giving correct collation). On the marcas de fuego, see: Sala, Marcas de fuego, pp. 28 and 39. On Vetancurt, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 118, frames 17–36 and 73–74. Contemporary limp vellum, shrunken and cockled, missing pieces along fore-edge of front cover and at base of spine. Some burn holes at tops of some pages resulting from embers’ straying during the branding of the book. Inner margins with expanded openings and occasional tearing around the sewing stations (i.e., paper has suffered from tight binding). Lacks two preliminary leaves containing approbations. Some foxing; last leaf (only) with foremargin insect-eaten. Text of the grammar complete. A significant work seldom acquirable.

Provenance:  Augustinian monastic library of Morelia (marca de fuego on upper edge of closed book; on verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand: “pertenece al convento de San Augustin de Valladolid”); private use of Fr. Manuel Aigustin Farias (noted on the verso of title-page in an 18th-century hand, prelim. p. 12, first p. 1); later owned by José Martín de Infanzón (prelim. p. 9).

•  Medina, Mexico, 1684; Palau 361217; Sabin 99386; Andrade 1073; Tovar de Teresa, Bibliografía novohispana de arte, 105; Wagner, Spanish Southwest, 68.   Early vellum over boards, rebacked; new endpapers and title-page backed for strength. Stray stains and ink markings variously, the latter in margins; minor worming in some lower margins, with waterstaining notable in the final section and a brown stain perhaps of another nature in upper gutter-ward areas of the same section, sometimes into text. Final six leaves with loss of lower outer corner, including some text; paper replaced and text in excellent facsimile. Volume now housed in a quarter blue morocco tray case with gilt spine.  (26824)

Although touted as “Primera parte” on the title-page, there were no further parts; this Historia is complete, “all published.”

•  Palau 366681; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2051; Sabin 99643; Leclerc 1546; Salvá 3422; Heredia 3407; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 701/262. On Villagutierre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1019, frames 213–16. 19th-century Spanish sheep (“pasta española”), covers abraded and with pinhole-type worming to spine; loss of lower inch of spine leather to insects. Browning to text due to impurities in water during paper manufacture. Small insect damage to margins of first four leaves, not touching any text; similar small damage in inner margins of last four leaves. Over all, a decent copy of a scarce work.

The volumes are from the famous press of the widow of José Bernardo de Hogal, the Baskerville of Mexico, and they retain all of the fine characteristics that are associated with the Hogal name, including handsome black and red title-pages, great typography (here in double-column format), and use of good quality paper.

The author was general accountant of the Treasury's office of mercury accounting (the element was important in silver refining) and one of the most illustrious Cosmographers of New Spain. He wrote this treatise at the insistence of the viceroy, who was greatly pleased by it.

•  Sabin 99686; Medina, Mexico, 3802; Tovar de Teresa, Bibliografía novohispana de arte, II, 86/87.   Recent full dark brown calf, round spines, raised bands accented with gilt rules; green and red leather spine labels; gilt center devices. Covers with elaborate gilt roll at edges, concentric center compartments and gilt corner devices. Lacking the engraved title, only. Present are intermittent touches of limited worming and, in vol. II, the occasional old stain to a top margin's edge. This is a clean and indeedBEAUTIFUL SET.  (26378)