Vita del P. Carlo Spinola della Compagnia di Giesù, morto per la S. Fede nel Giappone.
8vo (15.8 x 10.1 cm). [10], 132 pp., with woodcut headpieces, initials and tailpieces. Repair to title with loss of letter “S” of Spinola’s name, some worm tracks repaired near lower margin on several early leaves with some minor loss of letters, some pale damp staining. Bound in 18th-century half speckled calf over painted pasteboards, spine with gilt panels and red gilt lettering piece, red sprinkled edges; minor rubbing and wear to boards and edges. Ownership inscription on front flyleaf, ex libris inside upper cover. [BOUND WITH:] AZEVEDO, Francisco de. Vita del padre Francesco Tamariz scritta in lingua Spagnuola dal padre Francesco di Azevedo amendue della Compagnia di Gesu, e tradotta nella Italiana da un altro religioso della medesima Compagnia. Venice, Giuseppe Corona, 1730. 8, 184 pp. Generally good. Very rare 1629 Milan edition (first edition published in Rome in 1628) of the life of the Jesuit missionary Carlo Spinoza (1564-1622). The work contains much first-hand information concerning Brazil, Puerto Rico and Japan. Having studied in Naples, Milan, and Rome, and having served the parishes in Cremona, Spinola was appointed to travel to Japan. He sailed from Lisbon in April of 1596, but a storm damaged his ship, and he was forced to land in Brazil, first arriving at the Abroholos Archipelago before moving northward to Salvador de Bahia and Pernambuco. Spinola again set sail after five months in Brazil, but another storm drove the Jesuit to Puerto Rico, where he arrived at San Juan in March 1597. Spinola mentions the fine fortezza of San Juan—it had fended off the attacks of Francis Drake in late 1595, but would succumb to George Clifford, however briefly, in the summer of 1598—and he compliments its distinguished nobles and rich merchants, but laments that the “city is small and most of San Juan’s houses are of wood” (p. 28). Spinola mentions how similar the flora of Puerto Rico is to that of Brazil. He traveled to several nearby villages and sugar plantations and gives an account of the industry, including information on African slaves and the poor physical and moral state of the inhabitants, conditions he sought to improve. Returning to Europe, Spinola was captured by English pirates in the Azores and was imprisoned at Yarmouth for two years. Only in 1602 did he at last reach Japan. Spinola served in Miayko (Kyoto) and then Nagasaki, but he went into hiding when peaceful relations with Shogun Ieyasu (1553-1616) ended in 1614, eluding persecution for several years before his capture in 1618. After four harsh years in captivity, Spinola was burned at the stake in Nagasaki along with eight other Jesuits. He was beatified by Pius IX in 1867. Bound with the Spinola Vita is a translation into Italian by Bernardin Benzi of Francisco de Azevedo’s (d. 1712) Noticias de la vida, virtudes, y dones sobrenaturales desl venerable, y espiritualissimo P. Francisco Tamariz de la Compañia de Jesus, celebrating the spiritual accomplishments of the Seville Jesuit Tamariz.
* * The present Spinola edition is not in Sabin, Alden & Landis, Streit or De Backer. Alden & Landis (Bologna 1629 edition); De Backer & Sommervogel VII, 1448 (Rome 1628 edition); Sabin 89458 (Rome & Bologna 1629 edition); Streit V: 1407 (Rome 1628 edition). For the Noticias, De Backer & Sommervogel I, col. 1315.
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