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(MEXICO.) Valadés, Diego.
Rhetorica Christiana ad concionandi, et orandi
usum accommodata.
Engraved title page, 12 plates on 9 leaves, folding table, numerous
copperplate text illustrations (some full-page). [20], 378, [16] pages plus final blank. 4to,
contemporary vellum, minor wear; minor worming in margins, 3 leaves reinforced in mar-
gins, minor dampstaining, intermittent foxing.
Perugia, Italy: Petrucci, 1579
[10,000/15,000]
“
Almost certainly the first book written by a native of Mexico to be printed in Europe”—
Abbott in Rhetoric as Pedagogy, page 227. Valadés was the son of a conquistador and an
Indian woman, and the first Mestizo in the Franciscan order. This manual is an effort to pass
on his personal knowledge of Mexican culture to future missionaries. Valadés drew and
engraved the plates and illustrations himself, which include three alphabet plates utilizing native
Mexican imagery, a calendar plate, a folding birds-eye view depicting an Aztec sacrifice in
Mexico City, and more. European Americana 579/50 (“Manual for instruction of missionar-
ies to Mexico, describing indigenous religious rites & customs”); Medina, BHA 259; Palau
346897; Sabin 98300.