Catecismo Mexicano.... : Christianoyotl Mexicanemachtiloni....
Mexico: En la Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1758. [34],170,[6]pp. Small quarto. Contemporary limp vellum, printed waste endpapers. Light wear, wrinkling to vellum. Frontispiece and leaf Z1 in facsimile. Dual title-pages in Spanish and Nahuatl; two leaves from gathering I duplicated at rear before index leaf. Small areas of worming at gutter margin and fore-edge of initial leaves, affecting a couple of letters near the gutter. Intermittent light dampstaining along fore-edge, occasional light foxing. Good plus. Item #31
First edition of Spanish Jesuit Geronimo Ripalda's Spanish catechism translated into Nahuatl, by Ignacio Paredes, the renowned 18th-century scholar of Mexican languages. Ripalda was prominent as a Jesuit scholar in the late 16th and early 17th centuries in Spain. Paredes was born in Puebla at the beginning of the 18th century, and after his entrance into the Society of Jesuits was the author and translator of a number of religious works in native languages; he died the year this text was published. The present work contains two title-pages, one in Spanish and one in Nahuatl, and nearly the entirety of the text, apart from some Latin phrases, is in Nahuatl as well. An important work, and one widely-used by priests and natives alike. A good copy in a contemporary binding, with the frontispiece, often lacking, in facsimile. An attractive and significant example of mid 18th-century Mexican printing.
Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas 56. Medina, Mexico 4500. Palau 269110. Pilling, Proof-sheets 2891. Sabin 71488.
Price: $1,950.00