Espinosa, Isidro Félix de:

$5,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

EL CHERUBIN CUSTODIO DE EL ARBOL DE LA VIDA, LA SANTA CRUZ DE QUERETARO. VIDA DEL VE. SIERVO DE DIOS FRAY ANTONIO DE LOS ANGELES, BUSTAMANTE.... This is the first published work by Espinosa, the great Franciscan chronicler of the middle third of the 18th century. He was born in Queretaro, Mexico in 1679, was educated there, and on March 19, 1697 he began his career as a Franciscan. He took holy orders on December 17, 1703. Between 1709 and 1721 he participated in several expeditions to Texas: those of Capt. Pedro de Aguirre, Domingo Ramón, Martín de Alarcón, and the Marques of San Miguel de Aguayo.While Espinosa is most famous for his writings about Texas and his fellow Texas missionary, Antonio Margil de Jesus, this biography is of Fray Antonio de los Angeles Bustamante, the beloved porter of the Franciscan monastery in Queretaro. Fray Antonio was a lay cleric, a Spanish immigrant who arrived in Mexico as a boy and as an adult had a successful career in business which he abandoned to enter the monastic life. A full biography of such an "ordinary Joe" in the 18th century is most unusual. The volume offers an excellent copper-engraved portrait by Joaquín Sotomayor of Fray Antonio with the keys of his office and the symbols representing his responsibility of giving bread and water to those begging at the monastery door. The book is from the press of master printer Hogal, considered to be the Ibarra (or Baskerville) of Mexico. Searches of NUC and WorldCat locate fewer than a doz

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