1647 · Mexico City
by Salmeron, Pedro, compiler
Mexico City: Francisco Robledo, 1647. Good plus.. [8],99,[1] leaves. Octavo. 19th-century quarter sheep and and marbled boards, spine gilt. Original, plain rear wrapper with contemporary manuscript annotation bound in. Contemporary ownership inscriptions and annotations scattered throughout; small 19th-century bookplate on front pastedown. Spine ends scuffed, boards rubbed, moderate wear to edges. Trimmed occasionally close to headlines at top edge. Occasional minor worming and dampstaining, heavier to initial leaves. A rare, mid-17th-century Mexican handbook on performing the Mass, produced at the behest of the Colegia de San Pedro y San Pablo in Puebla. The work was put together by Fray Pedro Salmeron, who enjoyed a long and varied career in colonial Mexico and Central America. According to Beristain, he was a lawyer at the Real Audencia in Mexico, a government attorney in Nicaragua and Honduras, and treasurer and alcalde in Guatemala, before being ordained and becoming an assistant to Juan Palafox y Mendoza in Puebla and chaplain of the Carmelite orders there. The text contains detailed detailed instructions for the preparation and practice of the Mass, particular benedictions and readings for specific occasions, and a chart showing the appointed hours for the celebration of the Mass. Although the work was commissioned and compiled by church officials in Puebla, printing in the city was still in its infancy, so it was sent to Mexico City for production by Francisco Robledo, one of Palafox y Mendoza's favored printers there. The present copy, as noted by several ownership inscriptions scattered throughout, first belonged to the Discalced Carmelite Convento del Carmen in Celaya, between Irapuato and Queretaro in central Mexico, before passing to famed 19th-century collector of Mexican imprints J.M. Andrade, whose bookplate is affixed to the front pastedown. OCLC locates only one copy of this work in U.S. institutions, at Texas A&M.
Andrade 321 (this copy). Beristain IV, p.296. Medina, Mexico 659. Palau 287755. (Inventory #: 5167)
Andrade 321 (this copy). Beristain IV, p.296. Medina, Mexico 659. Palau 287755. (Inventory #: 5167)