Tomo primero de la historia de la provincia del Santo Rosario de Filipinas, Iapon, y China, de la Sagrada Orden de Predicadores.

Zaragoça : Domingo Gascon, Infançon, Impressor del Santo Hospital Real, y General de Nuestra Señora de Gracia, 1693. Folio, contemporary limp vellum (lacking ties), spine with early ms. title and decoration in black ink; hinges cracked; pp [viii], 767, [53 index]; title page with engraved vignette coat of arms; woodcut initials and tail-pieces; last section of main work and index leaves with some marginal water staining, not affecting text; occasional browning and light foxing, otherwise clean throughout; a good example.

The founding fathers of this Province of the Holy Rosary – 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 arrived in 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.

Aduarte’s Historia was first published posthumously in Manila in 1640, in two parts, folio. The Zaragoza edition of 1693, which has the phrase ‘Tomo primero’ added to the title, is therefore the second edition of the 1640 work. The second part, 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, 29