1493 THE END OF THE ARAB DOMINATION AND THE «RECONQUISTA» OF SPAIN de LOPEZ DE CARVAJAL, Bernardino - ca. 1493

4to (208x32 mm), 17th century vellum from a Spanish manuscript, ff. [12, the last is blank]. Text in Latin, Roman type 10:108R. 28 lines. Woodcut head-letter. Signature: a-b8.

Very rare first and sole edition of this sermon delivered in 1490 in praise of the celebrated Spanish victory over the Moors at Baza during the Granada War.

This sermon was part of an intensive Spanish propaganda campaign against Moors in Rome. It was delivered by Cardinal Carvajal at a Mass of Thanksgiving in the church of Santa Maria del Popolo (4 January 1490); six days later he gave a speech in the church of Santiago de los Españoles justifying the campaign against the Moors. The force of his arguments were felt in the Latin drama Historia Baetica (1493) by Carlo Verardi, and the heroic poem by Paolo Pompilio Panegyris de Triumpho Granatensi dedicated to him in 1490.

The Granada War (Spanish: Guerra de Granada) was a series of military campaigns between 1482 and 1491, during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs (los Reyes Católicos) Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, against the Nasrid dynasty's Emirate of Granada. It ended with the defeat of Granada and its annexation by Castile, ending all Islamic rule on the Iberian peninsula.

In 1489, the Christian forces began a painfully long siege of Baza, the most important stronghold remaining to the Emir al-Zagal. Baza was highly defensible as it required the Christians to split their armies, and artillery was of little use against it. Supplying the army caused a huge budget shortfall for the Castilians. Occasional threats of deprivation of office were necessary to keep the army in the field, and Isabella came personally to the siege to help maintain the morale of both the nobles and the soldiers. After six months, al-Zagal surrendered, despite his garrison still being largely unharmed; he had become convinced that the Christians were serious about maintaining the siege as long as it would take, and further resistance was useless without the hope of relief, of which there was no sign. The capture of Baza by the forces of the Catholic monarchs was a decisive victory towards the end of the Reconquista which culminated in Castilian troops entering the Alhambra on 1 January 1492.

Bernardino Lopez de Carvajal (1456-1523) was a Spanish cardinal, ambassador at the papal court for the Spanish crown. He advanced rapidly in the ecclesiastical career at Rome and he held successively the Spanish sees of Astorga, Badajoz and Cartagena, in which latter quality he was sent as nuncio to Spain. Their Catholic Majesties sent him back as Spanish ambassador to Pope Alexander VI, by whom he was made Cardinal of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus in 1493, which title he exchanged in 1495 for that of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. In spite of this rapid advancement and his numerous benefices he is best remembered as the leading spirit of the schismatical Council of Pisa (1511), subservient to the excommunicate Louis XII of France. Moroni says that he went so far as to accept the office of Antipope Martin VI at Milan where the Council was soon transferred; and Reumont says that in Pisa he was known to the urchins of the street as "Papa Bernardino". Both Carvajal and his colleagues were excommunicated by Julius II, and deposed from their offices, which act of the pope was confirmed by the Fifth Lateran Council (1512). At the seventh session (1513) of this council the Italian cardinals, Carvajal and Sanseverino, separated from their two French colleagues, formally renounced the schism, and were restored by Pope Leo X to their offices.

Condition: A very fine and wide-margined copy.

References: IBE 3557; Palau 46551. GW 6153 (dated 1495); BMC IV 98 (notes that Plannk only published this sermon in 1493, perhaps soon after he had printed Cardinal Carvajal's Oratio ad Alexandrum VI nomine Ferdinandi et Isabellae which is notable for containing one of the earliest references to the New World. Plannk was also, of course, responsible for publishing Columbus' Epistola earlier in that year). BSB-Ink C-164 (digitalized); Goff C229; IGI 2540; HC 4549*; Pellechet 3329; CIBN C-123 ("probably printed at the same time at with the same types of Oratio super praestanda obedientia"); IBP 1445; IBPort 1106; Martín Abad L-73; Voulliéme (B) 3425; Madsen 1053; Oates 1473; Rhodes (Oxford Colleges) 515; Bod-inc C-099; Sheppard 2975; Proctor 3684. ISTC ic00229000. L. Pastor, Geschichte der Päpste, Freiburg 1906, vol. IV (1), pp. 37–40. G. Moroni, Dizionario, Venice 1840-1861, vol. X, p. 134. A. von Reumont, Geschischte der Stadt Rom, Berlin 1867, vol. III, part ii, pp. 78–79.