Collectio Conciliorvm Hispaniæ.
Madrid, P. Madrigal 1593.
Folio (336 x 225 mm.). [iix], xxxix, 778, [2 blank], [71]p. UNORNAMENTED ELEGANT TYPOGRAPHY: fine roman and italic types, inner and outer marginal shoulder notes.
18th-century gilt-ruled red morocco (rubbed), gilt arms of Henri-Louis de Loménie, comte de Brienne, richly gilt spine compartments, gilt-lettered morocco title label, all edges gilt over marbling, blue silk marker.
First Edition. Salvá y Mallén considered it “the most beautiful book produced in Madrid in the 16th and 17th centuries” (tr.).
THIS IS THE FIRST COLLECTION OF CHURCH COUNCILS FROM A SINGLE NATION — forty councils in all, from Elvira (c. 300), the first for which proceedings have survived, to the 18th Council of Toledo (702), the last held in Spain before the Muslim conquest. The councils address doctrinal controversies, clerical abuse and discipline, ecclesiastical reform and Spanish church-state relations. Specific mandates reveal contemporary life in late Roman and Visigothic Spain, with prohibitions on song and dance, clergy consulting magicians or practicing magic themselves, substituting milk for Eucharistic wine, reciting the mass of the dead to the living to curse them, sacrifices to idols, etc.
García de Loaysa (1534-1599) edited the text from eight manuscripts — five in the Escorial, two in the Toledo cathedral and one in his private library. His preface discusses these codices and his editorial practices. He also added extensive commentary, supplementary documentation and the Lives of Illustrious Men by Isidore of Seville, whose Works he was then editing.
García de Loaysa was a canon of Toledo cathedral, chaplain of Philip II, tutor to the future Philip III and a bibliophile. Today, his intact book collection is a treasure in the Spanish National Library.
In good condition (scattered foxing, some quires slightly browned, one ink spot, last leaf backed); from the libraries of the comte de Brienne (1658-1743) and of Lord John Thynne (1772-1849; bookplate).
¶Salvá y Mallén, Catálogo 3630; Olds, Forging the Past: Invented Histories in Counter-Reformation Spain 53-5; Schulte, Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des canonischen Rechts III(1): 93 & 100; Peréz Pastor, Bibliografía madrileña 405; Palau 99186; see Corry’s Perceptions of Magic in Medieval Spanish Literature, 23-42.
Price: $11,500.00