Historia de la Provincia del Sancto Rosario de la orden de Predicadores en Philippinas, Iapon, y China. [Libro Primero / Libro Segundo]

En Manila : en el Colegio de Santo Thomas, por Luis Beltran impressor de libros, 1640. First edition. Two volumes in one, folio, contemporary limp vellum (a little stained, lacking ties), spine with manuscript title in ink; front pastedown with old ex libris of the Bibliotheca Magni Mexicani Conventus S. P.N. S. Francisco (early Convent inscription verso of title page) and later ex libris of Florencio Gavito; printed on rice paper; [Libro Primero] pp [8], 437; [Libro Segundo] pp 427, [34]; title with woodcut device within printed border; historiated initials, head- and tailpieces; text in two columns; title leaf and following three leaves, as well as the final four leaves all remargined, the final four leaves with loss to the text in the upper margin (these leaves probably supplied from another copy), occasional small repairs and some worming, else internally clean and sound; housed in a protective box of half morocco over cloth, spine with gilt decoration and lettering.

The very rare first edition of the first two books (Libro Primero and Libro Segundo) of Aduarte’s monumental history of the Provincia del Santo Rosario (Province of the Holy Rosary), published posthumously in Manila in 1640. The founding fathers of this Dominican Province – the Dominican mission in Asia – arrived in the Philippines in 1587, and the Province was admitted by the General Chapter of the Order in 1591.

Diego Aduarte was born in Zaragoza in 1569 and travelled to the Philippines as a Dominican friar in 1595. A gifted linguist, Aduarte mastered both Tagalog and Mandarin, and often took confession in the latter language from Chinese penitents visiting Manila. After serving as a missionary in Cambodia for several years, he was appointed Bishop of Nueva Segovia in 1632, a few years before his death in 1636.

The Zaragoza edition of 1693, which has the phrase ‘Tomo primero’ added to the title, is the second edition of the 1640 work. The second part of the Historia, written by Baltasar de Santa Cruz, was also published in Zaragoza in 1693; the third part, by Vicente de Salazar, was printed in Manila in 1742; and the fourth, by Domingo Collantes, appeared in 1783, also in Manila.

Pardo de Tavera regards Aduarte’s Historia as one of the most significant early sources on the Philippines, although he notes that the extensive accounts of miraculous events occupy a preferred place in the narrative. Aduarte also provides an important record of the activities of the first Spanish missionaries in Cambodia, and of the martyrdoms of Dominican missionaries and their catechists in Japan.

Pardo de Tavera, Biblioteca Filipina, 28 (aware only of the copy in the British Library); Medina, Manila, 57; Palau, 2986

An extraordinary rarity.

One of only two examples recorded at auction in the past century, this example was acquired by the previous owner at Sotheby’s London in 1986. The Harmwsorth copy, sold in 1953, is probably the same copy.