DIOSDADO CABALLERO, Raymundo.

De Prima Typographiae Hispanicae aetate specimen.Rome, Antonio Fulgoni, 1793. 4to. A bibliography of Spanish incunabula (plus a few early sixteenth-century books), with CCCX numbered items ("1451" to 1507) plus about seventy more in the addenda. Contemporary Italian mottled half sheepskin, gold-tooled spine with red label, red paste-paper sides, edges sprinkled red.

      xxxvi, 134, (2 blank) pp. De Backer & Sommervogel II, col. 481; Palau 74031; Ist. Cent. Cat. Unico (2 copies). First edition of the great pioneering work of early Spanish bibliography, listing more than three-hundred and fifty books, nearly all from the incunabular era. The extensive introduction discusses many difficulties of the subject, the annotated descriptions are quite detailed and the author documents his sources well, so that the book remains a valuable reference on the subject. Most of the first nine items are now known to be incorrectly dated, but items V (proceedings of the 1472 Synod of Segovia, printed after 10 June 1472) and VIII (40 poems from a contest held in Valencia in 1474, printed after 25 March 1474) remain candidates for the first book printed in Spain, though we are on firmer ground with items X and XI, both published in 1475. The first item in the addenda (Sánchez Vercial’s Sacramental ), there dated 1475, was dated ca. 1470 by Vindel but is now generally dated 1477. The Aristotle editions said to have been printed at Saragossa in 1473 are not listed.Diosdada Caballero (1740-1829/30), born on the island of Majorca, became a Jesuit novice at age twelve, taught at the Jesuit College in Madrid, and moved to Italy when Spain expelled the Jesuits in 1767. The present book, his first major publication, was reprinted in 1865. It is interesting typographically, with a rather old-fashioned roman and italic for the main text, but with the author’s note to the reader in a remarkably modern large italic (133 mm/20 line or about 20 point).With an early twentieth-century owner’s stamp on the title-page and fly-leaf. In very good condition and with generous margins, with only some slightly browned patches in a few leaves and a couple of rust spots in the paper. A work that initiated Spanish bibliography and remains useful today.