Pineda - Monarchia Ecclesiastica - 1588

Friar Juan de Pineda\n\nThe Thirty Books of the Ecclesiastical Monarchy or Universal History of the World, divided into five volumes.\n\nSalamanca - 1588 -\nJuan Fernández\n\n(23), 293 c; (2), 369, (1 blank), (5) c; (2), 564 c; (8), (1 blank), (1), 532 c; (10), 542, (1) c;\n\nIn folio - 29.5 x 21.5 cm. -\n\nSTRIKING AND RAREST COMPLETE SET OF PINEDA’S MOST IMPORTANT WORK.\n\nExtraordinary historical and cultural value, for over 5000 pages, gathered in thirty books, bound in 5 substantial volumes.\nThe first tome (the first volume of the first part) is bound in elegant late seventeenth-century leather, while the other four volumes (second volume of the first part, second part, third part and fourth part) appear in splendid homogeneous bindings, in full semi-rigid parchment, with wonderful contemporaneous manuscripts on the spine, in excellent patina.\n\nThe writing of the work took Pineda about 20 years and covers the history of the known world of his time.\n\nHidden within this work is a censorship-inquisitorial mystery concerning the censorship that occurred on the A4r page (see photo). This censorship bears all the hallmarks of a Spanish inquisitorial censorship (see the 2023 exhibition at the Biblioteca Nacional de España). However none of the digitized copies available online reflect this censorship. According to Barry Taylor, curator of the Spanish works on print at the British Library, it is indeed a form of inquisitorial censorship, but he has been unable to locate the book listed in the expurgated indexes from 1612 to 1667. The censored passage states that “God loves his Church more than He loves His Mother” (quoting Church Fathers).\n\nContains an interesting manuscript, both on the first frontispiece and on the verso of the first frontispiece, by the same contemporaneous hand but most likely significant (see photo). Another manuscript by the same hand appears on the verso of the last leaf of the same volume, dated 1633 (see photo).\n\nA beautiful heraldic emblem, in woodcut, of a famous Spanish noble house, appears on a full page (repeated), in ALL (2-3-4-5) of the other volumes (see photo).\n\nJuan de Pineda (1520/1599) was a writer and historian of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Medina del Campo, he moved to Salamanca, where he attended the University and became a Franciscan. He made numerous journeys in Spain in search of many libraries, where he consulted works that contributed to the writing of his Ecclesiastical Monarchy, in which he cites over 1000 authors, spending twenty years to complete the work.\n\nExcellent set with homogeneous binding for volumes 2–5, in contemporary semi-rigid parchment with traces of closing cords and prestigious manuscripts in splendid script and patina to the spines. Excellent full-leather binding for the first volume, with a small restoration to the upper cap and some abrasions to the hinges and caps, though the binding appears robust and solid.\n\nInternals generally well preserved, with slight natural yellowing of the pages. Note the constant presence of small woodworm galleries in all five volumes, mostly marginal. Only in the second part of the first book (volume 2) is there a central-page woodworm gallery of a few centimeters affecting the first two fascicles (A/B), including the frontispiece (see photo), fading gradually, with the loss of some letters of text. Additionally, volume 3 (second part) has another woodworm gallery affecting fascicles L/M/N, making some of the first two lines of the text in the second column difficult to read. Ancient manuscript ex libris (with deletions) on the first frontispiece, on whose verso there is an interesting contemporary manuscript. The manuscript repeats on the verso of the last leaf, also in volume 1, dated 1633. A beautiful heraldic emblem on a full page is repeated in volumes 2–3–4–5.\nTear with a small marginal loss of paper, without loss of text, on pages 38/39 (E6/7) of volume 2 (second part of the first tome).\nDespite the presence of recurring woodworm galleries, very rarely invasive, the work remains fully legible.\nAll original endpapers present and preserved.\n\nImportant set (historical value), and above all very rarely available, especially when complete in every part, as in the present instance.\nCOLLATED. COMPLETE