Lot 62: Lopez, Gregorio

Lettera Annua della Provincia delle Filippine dell Anno M.D.CVIII. Rome: Bartolomeo Zanetti, 1611 Small 8vo (6 x 4 in.; 152 x 102 mm). Woodcut Jesuit device on title, decorative woodcut initial; small dampstain in upper inner corner a first few leaves, some light marginal spotting in last few leaves. Limp vellum.

Streit V.253 (#720); De Backer- Sommervogel IV.1948; Palau 140000; Lach, Asia in the Making of Europe, III.1.373; H. de la Costa, The Jesuits in the Philippines, p. 629

First edition of one of the earliest works published in the West solely devoted to the Philippines, by the Jesuit P. Gregorio Lopez (1561-1614), active in the Philippines from his arrival in May of 1601 until his death (in Manila) in 1614. The publication of an annual letter of over a hundred pages in length devoted entirely to the Philippines reflects the dramatic strides made by the Jesuits in the first decade of the seventeenth century and a corresponding increase in European interest in the region. "Distressed by a new growth of problems for Christianity in Japan and by the appearance of the Protestant Dutch in the Pacific, Rome itself began to pay more attention to the missions in the strategically located Philippines" (Lach). With the sole exception of Ribera's annual letter for the year 1602/3, earlier Jesuit reports were effectively buried in reports on Peru and Japan and were typically very brief ? that of Francisco Vaez of 1601, for example. Lach lists the present work among the earliest separate Jesuit letters entirely devoted to the Philippines, characterizing them all as "exceedingly rare" (III.3.1492, n. 4). The work systematically reviews the progress of all the mission outposts, "and refers especially to the difficulties with the Muslims in the 'Pintados' (the Bisayan islands) and in Mindanao" (Lach, III.l.3 72-3 (see pp. 49ff.)). In addition to activities at the College in Manila, the region's headquarters, Lopez treats Antipoli, Taitai, Santiago, the Island of Pintados, Cebu, Bohol, Dulach, Tinagor and Cariaga, and Ottona. The incursion of the Dutch into the region is mentioned periodically, as a reminder to European Catholic readers that the Jesuits were continuing the battle of the Counter-Reformation even on the other side of the world.