360
●
(MEXICO—1758.) [Quixano, Miguel.]
Defensa juridica de las missiones de
Californias como herederas de Dña. Gertrudis de la Peña.
[2], 155 pages. Folio,
contemporary vellum covered at an early date in red silk, minor wear, text block coming
detached; moderate worming in bottom margin; small inked “MM” stamps on verso of
title and page 52.
México: Colegio de San Ildefonso, 1758
[3,000/4,000]
FIRST EDITION
,
POSSIBLY UNIQUE
.
Gertrudis de la Peña, widow of both the Marqués de las Torres
de Rada and the Marqués de Villa-Puente, was a Mexican woman who had willed much of her con-
siderable estate to the Jesuit missions in California. Her first husband’s nephews sued to get part of the
estate, and this brief was filed on behalf of the missions. Medina, México 4574; Palau 245680;
Wagner, Spanish Southwest 136 (“very good picture of social conditions in Mexico of the period 1713-
20”)—all listing only the 1759 edition, as does OCLC. Provenance: John Howell catalogue 50:1595
(1980); no other copies traced. The 1759 edition has not been found at auction, either.
WITH
—two
sermons delivered upon the Marquesa’s death in 1738: Carranza. Llanto de las piedras en la sentida
muerte de la mas generosa Peña * Oviedo. La muger fuerte, sermon panegyrico y funeral. [40]; [2],
18 pages. 4to, disbound from separate volumes; slightly cropped; small inked “MM” stamps on final
pages. México: Francísco Xavier Sánchez, 1739. Medina, México 3541; Palau 44964, 207712.