Reparos Historiales Apologéticos …

propuestos de Parte de los Missioneros Apostólicos del Imperio de la China representando los Descuidos que se cometen en un Libro que se ha publicado en Madrid en grave Perjuizio de aquella Missión.

En Pamplona: por Tomás Baztan, 1677. Small quarto, contemporary limp vellum, manuscript title to spine, bookplate from the famed library of Juan M. Sanchez to front pastedown, and with his catalogue label to rear pastedown, with ex-libris label of distinguished New York bookseller H. P. Kraus, ff. 172, occasional light foxing, a fine copy.

A key early work relating to the Chinese Rites controversy.

This anonymously printed work is a refutation of Archbishop Domingo Fernández de Navarrete’s tract Tratados Historicos, Politicos, Ethicos y Reliogiosos de la Monarquia de China (Madrid, 1676). In his Tratados Historicos …, Fernández de Navarrete (a Dominican who spent over a decade as a missionary in China) is highly critical of the Jesuits and their conflicting views on the practice of so-called ‘Chinese rites’ and their compatibility with the Catholic faith. Cortés Osorio’s Reparos Historiales Apologéticos was printed privately for the Jesuits and defends their position in permitting the practice of Chinese rites, noting that Fernández de Navarrete’s position will destroy the work of the missionaries in China. This turns out to be a somewhat prophetic sentiment, as they Christians would indeed be banished from China upon the later papal decrees banning the local practices and customs.

Reparos Historiales Apologéticos is an enlarged version of the earlier publication by Cortés Osorio Memorial apologético …  (Madrid, 1676). Both works are very rare, appearing in the market only every few decades.

Hill 379; Palau 63422; Streit-Dindinger V, 2446; Cordier BS 31.