Sales catalogue 54: H. P. Kraus

Date:
20th century
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/39/3
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue 54: H. P. Kraus. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    23/60 page 15
    18. ALEMAN, MATEO. Primera parte de Gusman de Alfarache. 8 leaves, 207 ff., 1 leaf. Slightly waterstained. Sm. 8vo. Brown calf with gilt-stamped book-mark of the Biblioteca de Salva as center-pieces on sides. Coimbra, Diogo Gomez Loureyro, heir of Antonio de Mariz, 1600. $50.00 Palau I 42; Salva 1695; Heredia 5933. A rare early edition of the famous picaresque novel by Mateo Aleman, the book which prepared the way for the acceptance of Don Quixote by the literary public of Europe, in its translations into all major European languages during the first decades of the XVIIth century. The first edition, so rare that not even Salva possessed a copy of it, appeared in Barcelona in 1599. Aleman is said to have gone through adventures similar to those described in his novel while he was in jail on account of embezzlements allegedly committed as an accountant of the Royal Treasury, and to have met Cervantes when both were im- prisoned for debt. In spite of the tremendous popularity of his book, to which he wrote a second part (Barcelona 1605), after a spurious continuation by another author. had profited from its success, he was always a poor man. He emigrated to Mexico, where he published a Spanish orthography in 1609. 19. ARCE DE OTALORA IUAN. Summa nobilitatis Hispanicae, et Im- munitatis Regiorum tributorum, causas, ius, ordinem, iudicium & excusa- tionem breviter complectens: nunc postremo recognita, atque infinitis prope locis emendata, novisque additionibus aucta. 8 leaves, 358 pp. 14 leaves. With printer's device on title and after p. 358. Folio. Contemp. limp vellum. Salamanca, Juan Bautista de Terranova for Juan Moreno, 1570. $40.00 Palau I 99. A revised edition of the important work on the rights and privileges of the Span- ish nobility by a much esteemed Spanish jurist. The woodcut, representing the patron saint of the printer, was probably designed by Juan de Arfe, the famous goldsmith and sculptor. 20. ARGOTE DE MOLINA, GONZALO. Libro, dela Monteria qve mando escrevir el mvy alto y mvy poderoso Rey Don Alonso de Castilla, y de Leon, Vitimo deste nombre. Acrecentado... 6 leaves, 91 ff., 1 blank leaf; 23 (misnumbered 25) ff., 1 leaf. With 35 fine Renaissance woodcut illustra- tions (some repeated) in the text, woodcut coat of arms of Spain on title- page, and woodcut printer's device at end. Title-page strengthened and dust-stained. Signatures of last leaves slightly shaved. Sm. folio. Spanish mottled calf with red label on back, g.e. From a library of Charles IV of Spain, with his gilt stamped crown initials on back of binding. Seville, Andrea Pescioni, 1582. $165.00 Palau I 16167; Salva 2635; Heredia 675; Vindel, Manual, 164. The first printed edition of the treatise on hunting composed by king Alphonso X of Castile, “one of the rarest and most important medieval works on this subject” (Ferdinand Denis in Nowv. biogr. universelle, Ill, p.224), which was edited and aug- mented by Gonzalo Argote de Molina (1549-c.1590), a scholar devoted to old Span- ish literature. Argote believed that it was written by Alphonso XI in the XIVth century. However, Felipe Benicio Navarro has proved that it is identical with Alphon- so X's Tratado de venacion (El libro de la monteria . . . Madrid, 1878). Argote has added several chapters of his own in a Discurso sobre el libro de la monteria. Here are found interesting references to the Spanish colonies in America which have escaped the attention of bibliographers of Americana. One of the 20 wood- am of this Discurso shows a hunting party of a king in the “Indias Occidentales” (fol. 12 v).
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