Beschreibung:

ANTONIO, Nicolas (1617-1684). Bibliotheca Hispana nova sive Hispanorum scriptorum qui ab anno MD. ad MDCLXXXIV. floruere notitia. Edited by Tomás Antonio Sánchez (1725-1802), Juan Antonio Pellécer y Pilares (1738-1806) and Rafael Casalbón Geli (1729-1787). Madrid: Joaquin de Ibarra [vol. I]; widow & heirs of Joaquin de Ibarra [vol. II], 1783[i.e. 1788]-1788. 2 volumes. -- Bibliotheca Hispana vetus, sive Hispani scriptores qui ab Octaviani Augusti Aevo ad annum Christi MD. floruerunt . Edited by Francisco Pérez Báyer (1711-1794). Madrid: widow and heirs of Joaquin de Ibarra, 1788-1788. 2 volumes. Together 4 volumes, 2 o (458 x 282 mm). Nova : Engraved title vignette (royal arms with supporters) by Marino Brandi after Rafael Ximeno on both titles. Vetus : portraits of King Charles III of Spain, and of Antonio by Fernando Selma the first after José Camaron y Boronat, title vignette, 7 head pieces, of which 6 are by Brandi after Ximeno, 6 engraved initials, a facsimile plate in black and sepia between pp. 490/491, and engraved facsimiles on pp. III & 169. Uniformly bound in contemporary Spanish brown mottled calf, gilt and inlaid, central rectangular panels formed by green morocco strips richly gilt with roll tools, outer gilt roll border, spines in seven compartments, red and green morocco lettering pieces, with a characteristic central tool of two birds drinking from a cup, sprinkled edges (small section on upper cover of vol. 3 peeled, smaller minor scuffs and abrasions to the others). Provenance : Hamilton Palace (sale Sotheby's, 1 May 1884, lot 90, to Bain); Archibald Philip, fifth Earl of Rosebery (his sale Sotheby's, 25 May 1995, lot 168: £7,142). ONE OF THE EXTRAORDINARILY RARE LARGE-PAPER COPIES OF THE SECOND AND BEST EDITION OF THIS MAGNIFICENTLY PRINTED, INCOMPARABLE ONE-MAN ACHIEVEMENT IN THE FIELD OF NATIONAL BIBLIOGRAPHY. Antonio published his Bibliotheca Hispana Nova in 1672, in Rome, while Philip IV's Agent General at the Holy See, but continued to work on it until his death in Madrid; these additions were incorporated into Ibarra's edition. The first edition of his Bibliotheca Hispana Vetus appeared posthumously in Rome in 1696, at the expense of his friend Cardinal José Saenz de Aguirre, and edited and revised by Manuel Marti. Schreiber ( Handbuch , 1925) points out that Antonio's work is also the most important source for Portuguese literature to the end of the sixteenth century. Among the appendices of the Nova are lists of Spanish women writers and of non-Spaniards who wrote in Spanish. An appendix to the Vetus gives the text of the forged early chronicle of Flavius Lucius Dexter by the seventeenth century Jesuit Roman de la Huguera, which Antonio himself had exposed in a posthumously published treatise (1742). Neither Palau nor J. Ruiz Lasala ( Joaquin Ibarra , Zaragoza, 1968) mention any large-paper copies of this edition; Salva simply states that he has seen copies on large-paper, but did not own one. Breslauer & Folter 66 (first edition); Brunet I, 335; Palau 13310 ("Monumento y obra capital de la Bibliografia española"). (4)