ARGÜELLO, Gaspar Isidro de.

Name: ARGÜELLO, Gaspar Isidro de.
Brand: ARGÜELLO, Gaspar Isidro de.
SKU: L4335
Price: 4950.00 GBP
Availability: InStock

REVISITING THE PERSECUTION OF SPANISH JEWS

ARGÜELLO, Gaspar Isidro de.. Instructiones del Santo Oficio de la Inquisicion.

£4,950.00

Madrid, En La Imprenta Real, 1630.

Folio, two parts in one. ll. (xviii). 38. First italic, second Roman letter. Divisional t-ps, first with woodcut arms of Bishop Antonio Zapata y Cisneros as Inquisitor General, halved with those of the Spanish Inquisition, second t-p with arms of the Spanish Inquisition. Woodcut initials, many large and attractive to first, tailpieces. First t-p with three letters of first line partially supplied in ink, light waterstaining to blank outer and lower margins, wormtracks to blank gutter and blank upper right margin of first few ll. of prelims. repaired, just touching text in places, a few tiny wormholes and small wormtracks to blank upper corner, worming to blank head and foot of gutter, light waterstaining to blank lower margin, small dark waterstain to blank head of gutter at end. Perfectly acceptable in C18 Spanish tree calf, spine gilt with red morocco label, blue paste paper endleaves, edges stained red, silk tie. C19 library labels to front pastedown of Monsig. Martinez del Campo, one or two contemp. marginalia.

Second edition, first published 1627, of this extremely rare guide to the operation of the Spanish Inquisition by the inquisitor Gaspar Isidro de Argüello, consisting of condensed versions of the original set of instructions by the first Grand Inquisitor, Tomás de Torquemada (1420-98), and the ordinances of Toledo promulgated in 1572, preceded by an ‘abecedario’ or alphabetical index.

Initially the Spanish Inquisition was primarily concerned with punishing and coercing converted Jews (conversos) and Muslims (moriscos) who were suspected of practicing their original faiths in secret. The second part of this book begins with the instructions concerning the Inquisition in Seville and particularly the Jewish area of Santa Cruz, where the Jews were ruthlessly repressed, either banish by edict in 1492 or forced to convert, with specific mention of the errors of Jewish ceremonies. There are also letters of instruction to the city and bishopric of Barcelona. The guide is designed to aid functionaries of the Inquisition in enacting its measures, containing in particular formalae for words to be spoken by those strongly suspected of heresy (vehementi) and those who have been found guilty (deliti), in which they repudiated their heretical beliefs. The exemplar used is for a heretic from Valladolid, showing the wide reach of Torquemada's Inquisition across Spain. There are also instructions for the various bureaucratic officers of the Inquisition: alguaciles, responsible for rounding up and imprisoning heretics, notaries who recorded cases, judges of goods, responsible for seizing property, treasurers and auditors who managed the finances of fines, etc., and the inquisitors themselves.

By the time of this reprint of Torquemada's original instructions, the Jewish conversos were no longer a significant 'problem' for the Spanish church and crown, the focus having shifted to broader Counter-Reformation anti-Protestantism, censorship of books, etc. The ordinances of Toledo 1572, which attempted to further consolidate the bureaucratic processes of the Inquisition, refer to forbidden books, reflecting the introduction of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum in 1559 after the Council of Trent. They also contain detailed descriptions of trial procedure, including a long discussion of the sentence of torture and its implementation, incarceration, and the auto-da-fe.

OCLC notes a single copy of this edition in the US, at UPenn, and only two copies of the first edition, at the Newberry and Brigham Young.

This edition not in Palau. Not in BM STC C17 Span. USTC 5036416. 5008307.

L4335