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(MEXICO.) Valadés, Diego. Rhetorica Christiana ad concionandi, et orandi usum accommodata. Engraved title page, 12 plates on 9 leaves, folding table, numerous copperplate text illustrations (some full-page). [20], 378, [16] pages plus final blank. 4to, contemporary vellum, minor wear; minor worming in margins, 3 leaves reinforced in margins, minor dampstaining, intermittent foxing. Perugia, Italy: Petrucci, 1579
"Almost certainly the first book written by a native of Mexico to be printed in Europe"--Abbott in Rhetoric as Pedagogy, page 227. Valadés was the son of a conquistador and an Indian woman, and the first Mestizo in the Franciscan order. This manual is an effort to pass on his personal knowledge of Mexican culture to future missionaries. Valadés drew and engraved the plates and illustrations himself, which include three alphabet plates utilizing native Mexican imagery, a calendar plate, a folding birds-eye view depicting an Aztec sacrifice in Mexico City, and more. European Americana 579/50 ("Manual for instruction of missionaries to Mexico, describing indigenous religious rites & customs"); Medina, BHA 259; Palau 346897; Sabin 98300.
