Bibliopoly

[JESUITS / MEXICO / BALTHASAR, Juan Antonio]

Catalogus personarum, & domiciliorum, in quibus sub A.R.P. Societatis Jesu præposito generali XVI. P. Petro Zespedes Hispaniarum assistente. P. Joanne Antonio Balthazar provinciæ Mexicanæ præposito provinciali LXVI. Societas Jesv mexicana pro gloria Dei ex instituto laborat...

Mexico City 1751

Description

Oblong 4to [10.5 x 14.5 cm], (36) ff. including 5 integral blanks. Bound in contemporary flexible vellum, front cover torn at edge, remnants of 2 vellum ties, initial leaves a little frayed at edges, some fingersoiling, even toning throughout, scattered annotations in a contemporary hand. Very good.

Rare first and sole edition of this internally published register of Jesuit establishments in Mexico, compiled by the new Father Provincial of New Spain, providing a Who’s Who of the Society’s presence in the New World. The book also offers a census of the various European ethnicities represented within the Mexican Jesuit establishment detailing the identities of native Mexican, Mestizo and aboriginal members among European members. A statistical analysis of these ethnic identities over a given time would show the relative composition of members from the Old and New Worlds.. In addition to the current information compiled in the present work, according to Balthasar’s introduction, it also aims to give the Jesuits of Mexico, many of whom lived and worked in isolation from each other, a sense of history and community, and to foster pride in the work of the Society. Juan Antonio Balthasar (1697-1763), a native of Lucerne, came to Mexico in 1720 and began missionary work among the Indians of Durango in Nueva Biscaya. In the 1740, as Padre Visitador, he traveled widely around Mexico, reporting in minute detail on the Jesuit establishments and missionary outposts. In 1750, a year before the publication of the present, he became rector of the Colegio de San Gregorio in Mexico City and Father Provincial of New Spain. He published a number of biographical works on fellow Jesuits in Mexico and collaborated on the publication of the Apostolicos afanes de la Compania de Jesus (1754). The present work does not bear a printed license, and appears to have been produced internally as a reference work for members of the Society. The integral blank pages provide space for additions and annotations. The crosses next to the personnel of College #2, Maximus Mexicanus, very likely indicates that these persons are deceased, and may also suggest that the present copy was employed at that particular College. A second edition appeared in 1758, of which OCLC lists no copies. The attribution to Balthasar has been contested by Streit, who attributes the compilation to a member of Balthasar’s residence, one Manual Colazo.

* Medina, La imprenta in Mexico, 4035; NYPL copy (which also has 5 blank leaves). See also Mathes, W. Michael (ed). Jesuítica Californiana 1681-1764: Impresos de los RR. PP. Eusebio Francisco Kino, Fernando Consag, Juan Antonio Balthasar, Juan Joseph de Villavicencio y Francisco Zevallos de la Compañia de Jesús (Madrid: Ediciones José Porrúa Turanzas, 1998) and Dunne, Peter Maston, Juan Antonio Balthasar, padre visitador to the Sonora frontier, 1744-1745;: Two original reports, Arizona Pioneers Historical Society, 1957.