Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 324

Price Realized: $ 4,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(MEXICAN IMPRINT--1804.) Decree by the Inquisition banning or restricting 74 books. Letterpress broadside, 33 x 23 1/2 inches, on 4 conjoined sheets, signed in type by Bernardo de Prado y Obejero and 3 others with their manuscript paraphs, and embossed paper seal; several tape repairs to folds on verso, 1/2-inch hole at center intersection of folds, minor wear and staining. Mexico, 30 June 1804

Additional Details

This unusually large broadside bears a similar header to most Inquisition broadsides: "Nos los Inquisidores Apostolicos contra la heretica pravedad y apostasía." It features three annotated lists of books: those prohibited even for those with licenses ("prohibidos aun para los que tienen licencia"), those prohibited in full ("prohobidos in totum"), and those which required censorship ("Libros mandados expurgar"). A total of 74 books are listed, most in Spanish but many of them in French, each with a short summary of their scandalous nature--"obra seductiva, fautora del tolerantismo," "impías y antisociales," "lasciva y obscena," "contener doctrinas heréteicas, revolucionarias y antimonárquicas," and more. Among the forbidden books are a 1764 French translation of Locke. Not in Medina, Mexico; 4 in OCLC, and none traced at auction.