An utopian Ethiopia 1611

Luis de Urreta

InkPaperLeather
21 ⨯ 15 cm
ConditionExcellent
Currently unavailable via Gallerease

• About the artwork
  Historia de la Sagrada Orden de Predicadores, en los remotos Reynos de la Etiopia.
  Valencia, Juan Chrysostomo Garriz, 1611. Small 4to (21 x 15 cm). With woodcut arms of the Dominican order on title-page, and a variant version on the last page, and 3 woodcuts in text (2 saints and the Cross). Further with 24 decorated woodcut initials in two series, including 11 repeats. Contemporary gold-tooled mottled calf, each board with the coat of arms of the French Seguier family, rebacked with original gold-tooled backstrip laid-down.
  
  First and only edition, in Spanish, of an early work on Ethiopia by the Spanish Dominican monk Luis de Urreta (ca. 1570-1636), who wrote two volumes glorifying his own order's accomplishments in Ethiopia while diminishing those of the Jesuits. In the present work, the second of the two, he deals specifically with the Dominican presence in Ethiopia and the history of the Ethiopian saints. Like the first work, the Historia ecclesiastica published in 1610, it is a late example of a stream of geographical fantasies where Ethiopia was presented as the wondrous utopian kingdom of Prester John, and Urreta makes the case for an ancient Dominican presence in the country, arguing that they should thus be given precedence over the Jesuits as Catholic missionaries in that country. With information on two Dominicans who entered Mecca around 1580.
  From the library of Pierre Seguier, Lord Chancellor of France from 1635 to 1672, best known for his appearance in The three musketeers, with his arms and monogram stamped in gold on the binding. And with an owner's inscription on title-page. With a faint water stain in the lower margin of four leaves in the introduction, a tiny corner torn from the title-page, otherwise in very good condition. Binding heavily restored, but with the gold-tooled coat of arms still very clear.
  Finger & Piccolino, p. 117; Palau 345993; cf. Gay, Bibl. de l'Afrique et l'Arabe 2690.
• About the artist
  Luis de Urreta (ca. 1570, Spain – 1636) was a Spanish Dominican monk. He was professor of theology in Valencia and wrote two volumes glorifying his own order's accomplishments in Ethiopia while diminishing those of the Jesuits, Historia ecclesiastica…de la Etiopia (1610) and Historia de la Sagrada Orden de Predicadores, en los remotos Reynos de la Etiopia (1611). Both volumes are a late example of a stream of geographical fantasies where Ethiopia was pre-sented as the wondrous utopian kingdom of Prester John, and Urreta makes the case for an ancient Dominican presence in the country, preceding that of the Jesuits in the country. He reports the existence in Ethiopia of a copy of the ‘lost’ book of Enoch, claiming to have found the title in a list made by two friars, Antonio Greco and Lorenzo Cremonese, for the librari-an of the Vatican Library, Cardinal Guglielmo Sirleto. The second volume deals specifically with the the Dominican presence in Ethiopia and the history of the Ethiopian saints.