TORQUEMADA, JUAN DE, CARDENAL

Meditationes.

TORQUEMADA, JUAN DE, CARDENAL.

Meditationes. Printer: Ulrich Han. Rome, 31st December 1467. Size: 31,5 x 22,5 cm. 38 leaves (76 pages). First illustrated printed book from Italy.

It is more than well known that in the history of the introduction of printing in Italy the Spanish cardinal Juan de Torquemada played an essential role, recommendatory abbot of the Monastery of Subiaco. The printing house of the two Italian prototypographers, the Germans Sweymheim and Pannartz, had been active since 1464, printing texts by Cicerone, Lactancio, San Agustín. Their name also appears in the history of Roman printing and without a doubt, not directly, in the history of the introduction of printing in Spain.

His Meditationes see the light in the Roman printing house of Ulrich Han on the 31st of December 1467, using types with round gothic lettering, having left spaces blank for the illuminator to include the initials and exhibiting thirty-one illustrations, wich reproduce paintings -now lost- of the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva. We have before us the first illustrated printed book from Italy.

Carlos Romero de Lecea has pointed out of this "not the most well known nor the most important work (of its author), but the most sought after by bibliophiles of all times" -refering to this first edition wich was a genuine best-seller in the XV century.

On this first edition there are only four known copies.

-Our edition: Valencia, 1998. Coedited with the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid.

-Edition of 3.000 copies, numbered and signed by notary and with the signature of the printer-publisher.

-Binding: Parchment on wooden board.

-Presentation case cloth lined with gold engraved leather spine containing facsimile and study in Spanish.

-Specially made laid paper.

-Study in Spanish. Author to be determined. Included in Bibliofilia Antigua V.