La vie du bien-heureux Pere Francois Xavier,

A$6,250 · Offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books

Premier de la Compagnie de Jesus, qui a porte l Evangile aux Indes, et au Iappon. Divisée en six livres par Horace Turselin de la Compagnie de IESUS, traduite en Francois par un Pere de la mesme Compagnie . Douay : Balthazar Bellere, 1608. Octavo, contemporary vellum, old ties, pp. [16], 862, [18]; title with woodcut Jesuit device, woodcut initials and headpieces; binding firm, internally clean. Life of Saint Francis Xavier (1506-1552), Spanish-born co-founder of the Society of Jesuits, missionary to India, and leader of the first Christian mission to Japan, authored by the Italian Jesuit Orazio Torsellini (1545-1596). Both Cordier and Sommervogel suggest that the translator was F. Martin Christophe (1584-1615). The work was first published anonymously in Rome in 1593, in Latin, as De vita Francisci Xaverii , but as this edition was compiled in the absence of the author and is truncated and full of errors , it is the fully corrected and expanded 1596 edition published in Rome by Zannetti that is regarded as the true first (Cordier, BJ , 128). Cordier, BJ , 131 (calling for a frontispiece portrait, which is not present in any of the copies in OCLC, including the BnF copy); Sommervogel, II, 1164 The Rare Book Hub database has only one sale record in the past century (Sotheby s, 1968).

• Binding: Hardcover

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