We will show a selection of fine and interesting books from the 16th to the 19th century, among them:

The Ethiopian Humanist
The First Person of Sub-Saharan African Descent to Publish a Work in Latin

Latino, Juan (d.i. Juan de Sessa). Ad Catholicvm, et Invictissimvm Philippvm Dei Gratia Hispaniarum Regem, De Augusta, memorabilis, simul & catholica regalium corprum ex varijs tumulis in unum regale templum translatione … Epigra(m)matum siue Epitaphiorum, libri duo per Magistrum Ioannem Latinum Garnatae adolesce(n)tiae moderatorem … 2 parts (in 1 vol.). [On the last leaf:] Granada, Hugo de Mena, 1576. 4°. 6 unnumbered leaves, 16 numbered leaves; 4 unnumbered leaves, leaves 17-68 (quires: #6, *4, A-B8; ¶4, C-H8, I4). With 1 folded table, 1 woodcut coat of arms on the first leaf (repeated on the folded table and on leaf 35 verso) and 1 small woodcut in the text (crucifixion) and many woodcut initials. Contemporary limp vellum binding with manuscript title on the back (ties lacking; back torn; front cover out of shape and somehow short). CHF 35’000.00

Excessively rare second publication of the “Ethiopian Humanist” (born around 1516, probably in Guinea; date of death unknown), who took the name of Juan Latino after dismissing his old slave-name Juan de Sessa. Taken prisoner by Spanish merchants, he was sold to Gonzalo Ferdinando de Cordova, Duca de Sessa, a son of the famous general Gonzalo de Cordova. Set free by his master he was admitted to study Latin at the Cathedral school of Granada, later at the university there he studied also Greek, grammar, music and other subjects, earning a degree in 1556. In 1565 Latino was called upon the chair for grammar at Granada University. – In his work Latino describes in great detail the transport of the royal remains from Granada Cathedral to the Pantheon in San Lorenzo de Escorial, then under construction, as ordered by the King Philipp II. After the “Oratio Laconica” (at the end of which there is a short biographical notice referring to Latino himself, naming him “Aethiops Christicola, ex Aethiopia”) follow the “Causae gravissimae regalium corporum translationis” in verse and the “Prologus dedicatorius” to Philipp II. The second part contains the epitaphs to Philipp’s royal ancestry as well as the chants and orations given during the exhumation and the transportation. The large folded table shows the names and the seats of all the dignitaries that attended the main ceremony ion Granada Cathedral.

Charles L. Blockson writes in his “A Commented Bibliography of One Hundred and One Influential Books By and About People of African Descent (1556-1982). A Collector’s Choice” (1989) about the Latino’s first publication of 1573: “… Latino … was a brillant poet, … Cervantes, the distinguished Spanish scholar, mentions Latino in his classic work Don Quixote. Cervantes called him ‘El Negro Juan Latino’, and regarded him as the epitome of a pedantic scholar. While Latino did not receive the international recognition that was afforded to Cervantes, there are strange affinities between the two writers. Both ironically spent part of their lives in slavery. Arthur R. Schomburg, the renowned black bibliophilic proclaimed that Latino’s The Austrias ‘is one of the most remarkable and rarest of books’. No American scholar undertook to translate the work of this brillant scholar until Dr. V.B. Spratlin produced in 1938 his Juan Latino, Slave and Humanist … Schomburg succinctly statet, ‘there is no doubt about Latino’s origin and race – his epitaph reads: ‘Filius Aethiopium, prolesque nigerrima patrum’.”

Palau Vol. 7, 132.858 and 859. Work, A Bibliography of the Negro 455. Neither in the British Museum nor in Adams nor in the catalogue of the Hispanic Society of America. We know only of three copies in public libraries in Granada and Madrid and at Harvard.

A good copy, only slightly foxed. Weak damp stains in some leaves. A small hole in leaf 59 with the loss of a few letters. A few small damages along the margins. On the first leaf manuscript ownership device: “Asquid venisti”.

Not an illustrated, but one of the rarest of all the fête books!

Goya, Francisco. Los Desastres [della Guerra.] Coleccion de ochenta láminas inventadas y grabados al agua-fuerte por Don Francisco Goya. Publicala la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Madrid 1906. Landscape-fol. 1 Titlepage (of 2), 1 leaf of text (of 2) and 80 aquatinta engravings. Contemporary halfcloth with marbled covers. CHF 38’000.00

Harris, Goya Engravings and Lithographs 121-200. One of 275 unnumbered copies of the fourth edition which is especially sought after because of its excellent printing quality; this is a copy without any stains. The proofs are all “fair” or “good” according to Harris’s qualification. This fourth edition surpasses the printing quality of the second (1863) and the third edition (1903). –Goya’s plates are inspired by the atrocities of the Napoleonic Spanish war 1804-1814 (plates 2-47) and of the dreadful famine in Madrid 1811-1812 (plates 48-64). Plates 65-80 show “caprichos enfáticos”, horror scenes freely invented by Goya. Goya had started to work on this suite in 1810 and finished it in 1820. – All plates mounted on small stubs. Plate 17 (Harris 137) is mounted in as plate 77, plate 77 is mounted in as plate 17 (Harris 197). The upper right corner of the titlepage has been cut out (with the loss of the words “della Guerra”). This copy lacks a second titlepage (somehow a facsimile of the titlepage of the third edition of 1903) and a leaf with biographical information taken from the second edition of 1863.