BURGOS, Pedro Alfonso de

by Pedro Alfonso de Burgos

£2,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

A good copy of the first edition of this rare commentary on the life of the Virgin Mary. The author, Friar Pedro Alonso de Burgos (1500-1572), is considered the most outstanding hermit writer of Montserrat (Spain). He was born in one of the islands of Zeeland (Netherlands), but his parents were originally from the diocese of Burgos. After completing his studies of theology at the University of Louvain, de Burgos spent some time at the service of emperor Charles V, until the Duke of Bejar one of the courtiers of the emperor brought him to Spain to be the tutor of his children. Later, after visiting the Montserrat monastery in Catalonia, he decided to stay and became a monk. Described by his contemporaries as penitent and assiduous, devoted in prayer and in all spiritual exercises, he abandoned the monastery in order to lead an eremitic life in one of the mountain hermitages. Here, he was often visited by important personalities, including King Philip II, Emperor Maximilian II of Austria and his wife, as well as the Marquis of Cortes, Juan de Benavides, to whom this work is dedicated. He exercised his spiritual influence outside of the hermitage through his writings, which consist in a series of ascetic treatises on the topics of solitary life, theological virtues, devotion to God and to the Virgin Mary. During the Council of Trent (1545 1563), the veneration of Mary was strongly reaffirmed in opposition to protestant reformers, who, although honouring the Virgin, were question

• Binding: Hardcover

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