SANTA MARIA, Fernando de

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Heirs of Antonius Bladius Rome, 1571. Quarto, 4 pp.; in a fine nineteenth-century binding by Chambolle-Duru of full green levant morocco, gilt inner dentelle borders, gilt edges; coat-of-arms in gilt on front and rear covers. First edition: one of the series of slim and elusive sixteenth-century books about the East Indies which are typically very rare today. This particularly scarce printing is otherwise recorded only in the James Ford Bell Library copy. The bibliographer Streit could not cite a single copy, while Brunet does not record the book at all.

This is the Latin translation of Father Fernando de Santa Maria's account of the mission in Malacca and Goa, and of the life and martyrdom of Father Jeronimo de Cruz. The original account, completed 26 December 1569, was sent to the Dominican General in Rome in 1569, and after being translated into Latin on his orders was published for the first time in this form in 1571.

Fernando de Santa Maria was a Portuguese Dominican, born at Villaviçosa in 1516, who studied theology at Coimbra University. He went out to India as a missionary, and worked on the island of Solor, where he was known as the "apostolic man". He eventually became prior of the convent at Goa, and vicar-general of the Holy Congregation for India. In addition to the present work he wrote a history of the siege of Goa, which was never published. He died at Goa in 1586.
OCLC , 17905640; Streit, 'Bibliotheca Missionum', IV:942.

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• libraire: Hordern House (AUSTRALIA)