Born a generation and a half after the completion of the conquest of Mexico, Antonio del Rincón (1556–1601) was a mestizo native of Texcoco, a descendant of the tlaloque (the nobility of Texcoco). Nahuatl was his native language and so too was Spanish. He entered the Jesuit order at Teopoztlán in August of 1573, the year after the Jesuits arrived in Mexico, and saw his Nahuatl grammar published by Balli in 1595.

The title-page and preliminaries occupy the first eight leaves here, followed by an author's prologue on fols. [1r–v, 2r], with the grammar filling fols. [2v]–78r. A dictionary of all Nahuatl words used in the grammar begins on fol. 78v and continues on the next 18 leaves.

Provenance:  Huth bookplate (white leather lettered in gilt: “Ex Musaeo Huthii”); in the hands of Bernard Quaritch in 1918 (collation notation); 1963 notation of another bookseller.

Binding:  Full sprinkled sheep by Riviere and Son; gilt spine extra, delicate gilt border to covers and gilt rules on board edges; gilt inner dentelles. Marbled endpapers. All edges gilt.

Uncommon: No copy has appeared at auction in more than a generation and all U.S. institutional copies were acquired prior to 1960.

•  Medina, Mexico, 135; Sabin 71412; Palau 268086; García Icazbalceta, Bibliografia mexicana del siglo XVI (rev. ed.), 134; Viñaza 88; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 1859; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3305; Newberry Library, Indians, Nahuatl-187; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2279.   Bound as above; joints tender (as always with Riviere bindings!!). Interior clean and nice.  (25844)