Bidspirit auction | Fr. Manoel da Trindade

Fr. Manoel da Trindade - Bibliotheca do Mundo, 1ª Edição - Fr. Manoel da Trindade, 1752. Published in 1752 in Lisbon, printed at the Office of Miguel Rodrigues (Printer to the Patriarch). This is the first edition of this monumental, rare, and highly esteemed theological work, of mystical and moral reflections in the Baroque style, entitled ”Bibliotheca do Mundo, ou Theatro Copioso de divinas reflexoens, & humanas doutrinas, ordenado para desengano de ignoras, & reforma de negligentes” (Library of the World, or Copious Theatre of Divine Reflections, & Human Doctrines, Ordered for the Disillusionment of the Ignorant, & Reform of the Negligent), written by Father Fr. Manoel da Trindade, Chronicler of the Holy Province of St. John the Evangelist. The volume is presented in a superb full leather binding of the period (18th-century sheepskin), with a beautiful five-rib spine decorated with rich gilt tooling on the holes and a red leather label. The covers are decorated with fine linear blind-engraved moldings. This copy is of exceptional historical and heraldic interest: the back cover bears the engraved bookplate of the illustrious J. G. Mazziotti Salema Garção Bookstore, with its respective dry embossed stamp (blind stamp) on the frontispiece, and the endpaper also displays a handwritten note in pencil referring to the prestigious Soares & Mendonça Auction (Porto, Lot No. 1321). The interior is exceptionally clean, with very sound pages, preserving the beautiful decorative headpieces and historiated initials in woodcut. A piece of high bibliophilia from 18th-century Portugal.