Rare books 22: Text upon Text, Notes upon Notes

The letters of Saint Teresa, translated into Italian by Orazio Quaranta, together with the annotations of Juan de Palafox y Mendoza (1600-1659), translated by Carlo Sigismondo Capece (Venice, 1690). Notes: Pictured left are three slips of paper. 1. A typed catalogue entry of unknown origin, rubber-stamped FEB 1985, and further annotated by unknown hands in ink. Some of this information proved useful for my own description. 2. Marker of the Australian Early Imprint Project scribe, ‘E.I.P. 10.10.85’. 3. My own date marker, also written on acid free paper, for shelving purposes. The source of the card may be explained by Paul Chandler’s handwritten accession note inside the back cover, ‘From Institutum Carmelitarum, Rome 1985, $7.50’ Pictured right is the title page, evidence if we needed it of Teresa’s established place in European thought by the turn of the 18^th century. But also of her annotator, Bishop Palafox. Annotating the letters of Teresa would have been a practical and pleasurable break from the daily backlog of work of this erudite man. As Bishop of Puebla in Mexico, he established what most people regard as the first public library in the Americas, the Biblioteca Palafoxiana, on the 6^th of September 1646. As bishop he protected the Native Americans, forbidding any form of conversion other than persuasion, also writing a work about them entitled ‘Virtues of the Indians’. Palafox came into conflict with the Jesuits, who ignored his episcopal authority by not paying the required land tithe to the church, and this led ultimately to a breakdown in relations and his humiliating recall to Spain. Pope Innocent X responded to his complaints by issuing an order for Jesuits to obey the bishop in Mexico, something which amounted to a rap over the knuckles. As can be seen on the title page, he ended his days as ‘vescovo di Osma’, a parochial backwater in Old Castille. Palafox was designated Blessed in 2011.