Latino, Juan (Juan De Sessa)

Ad Catholicum, Et Invictissimum Philippum Dei Gratia Hispaniarum Regem...Sicut Per Unum Hominem De Terra Terrenum Morimur, Itaper Unum Hominem De Ceolo Ceolestem Nobiscum Regalia Corpora Vivisicabuntur

      Hugo de Mena, 1576. First edition. 68 leaves. Tied contemporary flexible vellum, title in manuscript on the spine. Woodcut coat of arms on the title-page, repeated on the large folding plate, and on one other page, with an additional small woodcut of the Crucifixion. One tie broken, split at the top joint, a tear on the title-page, else a handsome, very good copy. An excessively rare first edition of the second work of Juan Latino, the great "Ethiopian Humanist. " Latino (also known as Juan de Sessa) was captured by Spanish sailors, probably near the coast of Guinea, and subsequently sold to Gonzalo Ferdinando de Cordova Duca de Sessa, hence Juan's name. Sponsored by his master, Juan studied at the University of Grenada, eventually was set free, and received the chair of grammar at his university. He was the first published African poet in Europe, the first African to be published in Europe in Latin (thus his later name, Latino), and the second African to be published in Europe, after Leo Africanus. Cervantes mentions Latino in his classic work Don Quixote as "El Negro Juan Latino, " and regarded him as the epitome of a pedantic scholar (not without some derision, as Cervantes himself was not as fluent in Latin as he would have liked to be). In this particular work, Latino's second of three (he published a similar work in 1573, issued by the same publisher, known in only one copy, Blockson 101 #2) he describes in both prose and verse the celebration of the transfer of the Royal remains from the Cathedral in Granada, to the mausoleum in the Royal monastery Escorial, by the command of King Philip II. Apparently only two other copies are known, at Harvard and the University of Grenada. The only Juan Latino first edition we have ever seen on the market.