Americana thebaida. Vitas patrum de los religiosos hermitanos de N.P. San Augustin de la provincia de San Nicolas Tolentino de Mechoacan, escrita por Fr. Matias de Escobar, ano 1729

$200 · Offered by Book Collector Inc

Author: Escobar, Matias de (1690-1748) from the library of Professor George M Foster Year: 1924 Publisher: Imprenta Victoria Place: Mexico City Description: xlvii+897 pages with plates and foldout picto-gram. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 7 1/4") bound in half brown leather with raised spine bands and gilt lettering to spine with original wrappers bound in. Edited by Nicolas Leon. From the library of George M Foster . second edition. Matias de Escobar continued the narrative started by Diego Basalenque by drawing on him, on Grijalva and on a lost manuscript by Jacinto de Aviles. His own work has never been completely published. He brought events down to his own time, 1729. He entitled it Americana Thebaida , with a subtitle indicating it was to contain lives of the Augustinians of Michoacan. It contents fall into 61 chapters. The early ones repeat the pioneer history of the Augustinians in Mexico and Michoacan. The author devotes much attention to mission methods for Indian conversions, the founding of monasteries and biographies of numerous Augustinian missionaries, especially from his own province. His account has a wider scope in place and time than similar Augustinian efforts. But as a stylist, Escobar is close runner-up to Burgoa for lowest honors. His baroque sentences are overloaded with pretentious and irrelevant erudition, sacred and profane. Hence Americana Thebaida is seldom read for pleasure. Escobar's work still awaits proper publication. Nicolas Leon twice edited the c

• Binding: Hardcover

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.