Indice Ultimo de los Libros Prohibidos y Mandados Expurgar: Para todos los Reynos y Señorios del Catolico Rey de las Españas, el Señor Don Carlos IV.
Madrid: En la Imprenta de Don Antinio de Sancha, 1790. Item #1125 4to. 290 x 200 mm., [11 ½ x 7 ¾ inches]. [4], xl, 305 pp. Bound in contemporary full mottled calf, raised bands, red leather label on spine, marble paper pastedowns and end sheet. Fine copy printed on very good paper with wide margins. Augustin Rubin de Cevallos, Inquisitor General of Spain, contributed to the policy of Count Floridablanca to establish a “corridor of cleanliness” within Spain, to prevent the spread of revolutionary ideas in the south of the Pyrenees. The Index “contains in summary all the books placed in the Expurgation Index from the year 1747, and in the subsequent Edicts, until December 1789. Formed and arranged with all clarity and diligence, by order of the Hon. Mr. D. Agustin Rubin de Cevallos, Inquisitor General, and Lords of the Supreme Council of the Holy General Inquisition; printed of his order, in accordance with the Exemplar seen and approved by said Supreme Council.” The text of the Index begins with a recitation of the general rules governing the selection of books to be listed in this volume and a transcription of the Prefaces from the previously three published indexes. It includes instructions for how Inquisitors are to judge printed works, and methods for expunging lines of text from a given volume. Cevallos writes, “This would close the door on the excesses of printers and booksellers, and also to wrongful actions on the part of private persons and would prevent the evils, consequent upon the introduction into the Kingdom of such pernicious commodities as heretical books.” The introduction also come with a statement to publishers that they are able to petition the Office of the Inquisitor to have titles to be removed from the list, “as has always been the case.” This is followed by a list of XVI “Reglas” which determined who does the selection, how the selection is conducted, and which books are to be condemned. Following the rules are 305 pages of short-title entries of banned books. George Haven Putnam, The Censorship of the Church of Rome pp. 299-304
Price: $3,500.00