Ledesma, Bartholomé de: [Mexican Incunable]:

$75,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

REVERENDI PATRIS FRATRIS BARTHOLOMAEI À LEDESMA ORDINIS PRÆDICATORUM ET SACRÆ THEOLOGIÆ PROFESSORIS DE SEPTEM NOVÆ LEGIS SACRAMENTIS SUMMARIUM. CUM INDICE ... A very rare, complete, and substantial example of early Mexican printing. This work was produced and published by Antonio de Espinosa, the second printer in the New World after Juan Pablos, and is one of the most considerable efforts of his career in Mexico. Espinosa was brought to Mexico by Juan Pablos as an assistant and type cutter in 1550, and he eventually broke Pablos' monopoly and began printing for himself in 1559. The present work, printed in 1566, is one of only a handful produced in Mexico during that decade, and is one of the initial books of the Mexican incunable period.The text itself is the first edition of a religious work by Bartholomé de Ledesma explicating church sacraments in great detail, later reprinted in Salamanca in 1585. The work is split into six parts. The first discusses the sacraments generally, and the ensuing five treat individual sacraments in depth. Ledesma was a key figure in the early Mexican church, as a close advisor of the second Archbishop in the New World, Alonso de Montúfar, and the chair of theology at the nascent University of Mexico (founded in 1551). He was also one of the foremost proponents of book censorship and prohibition in New Spain, and vigorously investigated private libraries and booksellers for forbidden materials, and was responsible for the destruction of many v

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