Item #5809 Insinuacion de las grandezas de san Miguel y de sus famosos santuarios en los reynos de España, Francia, Portugal, Napoles y las Indias. Manuel COLLADO DE RUETE.
Insinuacion de las grandezas de san Miguel y de sus famosos santuarios en los reynos de España, Francia, Portugal, Napoles y las Indias.
Insinuacion de las grandezas de san Miguel y de sus famosos santuarios en los reynos de España, Francia, Portugal, Napoles y las Indias.
The Veneration of St. Michael the Archangel in Europe and the Americas
Complete with the Oft-Missing Indulgence Engraving Frontispiece
[Americana] / [Art].
Madrid, Heredos de Francisco del Hierro, 1760.

Insinuacion de las grandezas de san Miguel y de sus famosos santuarios en los reynos de España, Francia, Portugal, Napoles y las Indias.

4to [18.9 x 13.1 cm], (1) f. full-page engraving, (8) ff., 252 pp. Bound in contemporary vellum, manuscript title on spine. Minor rubbing to binding, endpapers toned, annotations on front flyleaf. Occasional minor toning, the occasional minor stain.

Rare first and only edition of an 18th-century study on the cult of Saint Michael the Archangel in Europe and ‘the Indies,’ with information on the saint’s following as far afield as Peru, Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico, Japan, and Manilla. The present copy preserves the work’s (often missing) engraved frontispiece which depicts a cult statue of St. Michael venerated in Madrid. Extraordinarily, an inscription on this engraving informs the reader that 100 days of indulgence will be granted to those who recite a ‘Pater Noster’ and an ‘Ave Maria’ while viewing the print. Indulgence woodcuts appeared early in the history xylographic printmaking, offering users inexpensive icons on which to focus expiatory prayer, and this image practice continued in woodcut and engraving well into the 18th century. Such indulgence prints, be they 15th century or 18th century, were heavily handled and thus examples very rarely survive today, and we can recall no other occasion of such a print being used for the frontispiece of a printed book.

This unsigned engraving depicts an altar statue of Saint Michael, sword in hand, alighting atop the vanquished devil. A banderol at the top of the elaborate rococo frame carries an inscription which continues onto a plaque at the foot of the print. It reads: “El EM.mo S.or Cardenel Molina concede 100 dias de indulg. a todas las person. q. rezaren un P.r Nro y una ave Maria xogando a D.s por las animas de purgat.o delante de esta estampa del Arcang.l S.n Mig.l a debocion de un deboto.” The author of the treatise, Manuel Collado de Ruete, was attached to the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel in Madrid, and this book was, according to the title page, available for purchase in the sacristy of that church. He describes on pp. 92-3 the feast day of St. Michael (8 May) held at the Parroquia de San Miguel Arcángel which culminated with a procession of the wooden cult statue housed there, presumably the statue depicted in the engraving.

Collado de Ruete gives considerable space to discussing the famed sanctuary oat Monte Sant’Angelo sul Gargano in Apulia before providing an extensive catalogue on Spanish locales with religious and civic institutions devoted to St. Michael. A treatment of cult sites in the Spanish East and West Indies is found at pp. 197-204, with Puebla de los Angeles in Mexico given special attention. Appended to the book is a novena, or nine-day spiritual exercise focusing on St. Michael, poems, and an annotated bibliography of 73 works treating St. Michael from antiquity through the 18th century.

OCLC locates only 2 copies of this title in North America, one of which lacks the engraving: SMU and Notre Dame (without engraving).

* Palau 5758; Aguilar Piñal II 3379.

 

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