Mar 10, 2011 - Sale 2239

Sale 2239 - Lot 464

Price Realized: $ 2,640
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
BENEDICT THE BLACK (RELIGION.) BENAGASI Y LUXAN, JOSEPH JOACHIN. Vida del Portentoso Negro San Benito de Palermo, Descripta en Seis Cantos Joco-serios, del reducisimmo Metro de Seguidillas, con Argumentos en Octavas. Full-page engraved portrait preceding page 1. Half-page woodcut head and tail-pieces; text within a woodcut border. 4to, [xx], 1-136 pages. Madrid Imprenta de Juan de San Martin, 1750

Additional Details

first edition of this "serio-comical" life of San Benito of Palermo, sometimes called "Benedict the Black," or "Benedict the African." Benito was born the son of African slaves in Sicily in 1526. The present is a highly unorthodox rendering of Benito's biography, told in verse "in the style of Seguidillas," a form of Flamenco! Benito was freed by his master when he was an adolescent and became a shepherd. At the age of twenty he met and fell in with a group of Franciscans monks. When he was first admitted to the order, the Franciscans made him their cook--how history repeats itself! And what a cook he must have been, because early references to him state that he performed "great miracles" while cooking, which may well have taken the form of herbal soups, teas etc. He was briefly made the head of novices for a brief time, but returned to the kitchen. He was held in such regard that people came from far and wide priests and theologians and eventually the Viceroy of Sicily himself. Benito died in 1589, and was canonized by Pope Pius VII on May 24, 1807.