Vita Christi, de Manoel das Povoas, Canonigo de la Santa Iglesia de Lisboa.

Lisbon, En la Officina de Pedro Crasbeeck, 1614.. FIRST EDITION. 4°, mid-eighteenth-century sheep (minor binding defects), spine gilt with raised bands in five compartments, citron leather label (slightly chaffed), gilt letter, text-block edges sprinkled red. Large woodcut vignette of a vase with flowers on title-page, woodcut initials and tailpieces. Running heads of two leaves almost touched. Minor stain and slight soiling to title-page. Some insignificant marginal worming. In very good condition. Color abstract pictorial bookplate of Joaquim Pessoa. (2), 253 ll. *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION. This epic poem in Spanish on the life of Christ, from conception to being handed over by Judas, was praised by Lope de Vega: "Y con sus rimas triples á Poboas Que honró la lengua castellana tanto"The work also won the applause of Manuel Faria y Sousa. On leaves 175 verso and 176 recto (Canto 20), the author treats the Battle of Lepanto (1571), in which the Holy League decisively defeated the Ottoman Empire. He planned to continue the poem, but it appears that this object was never achieved.D. Manuel das Povóas was a native of Lisbon, born ca. 1564. He was a canon of the Lisbon Cathedral, and died in that city in 1625.The Salvá catalogue says that this work has three preliminary leaves; Palau, who cites no other copy, follows Salvá in calling for three preliminary leaves. However, all copies actually located (the Houghton Library / Palha copy, the Hispanic Society of America/Jerez copy, and the three copies in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal) have the same collation as our copy, with two preliminary leaves. Moreover, all other bibliographies and catalogues which give collations (Innocêncio, Pinto de Matos, Garcia Peres, Palha and Sucena), agree that there are but two preliminary leaves. One can speculate that either Salvá mistakenly cited three leaves when really intending to record three printed pages, or that the Salvá copy contained a license leaf from Castile or Aragon not present in any other known copy, and not required for the book to be complete.Provenance: Joaquim [Maria] Pessoa (b. 1948), poet, artist, publicist, student of Portuguese pre-history, and book collector, was the author or co-author of many Portuguese television programs, and for six years (1988-1994) was director of the Sociedade Portuguesa de Autores. He also founded the artistic cooperative Toma Lá Disco, with Ary dos Santos, Fernando Tordo, Carlos Mendes, Paulo de Carvalho and Luiz Villas-Boas, among others. See Álvaro Manuel Machado in Machado, ed., Dicionário de literatura portuguesa, p. 379.*** Arouca P238 (collation agrees with our copy). Barbosa Machado III, 346-7 (with incorrect publication date of 1613). Innocêncio VI, 88-9 (giving the same collation as our copy). Pinto de Matos (1970) pp. 514-5 (giving same collation as our copy). Garcia Peres p. 472 (giving incorrect collation of ii, 235 ll., the 235 probably being a typographical error for 253, the correct number of leaves). Nicolau Antonio I, 270. Palau 234406 (gives an additional preliminary leaf, after the Salvá-Heredia copy, the only copy cited). Salvá 889. Heredia 2085. Biblioteca Central da Marinha, Catálogo das obras impressas no séc. XVII, p. 114. HSA p. 437 (the Jerez copy; this copy was examined at the HSA; the collation agrees with our copy). Jerez p. 82. Palha 833 (with [2], 253 ll., the same as our copy). Sucena 920 (collation same as our copy). Otherwise not in any other of the dozen or so most important Portuguese auction catalogues since the Sir Gubián sale in 1867. Not in Coimbra, Reservados. Not in Gallardo. Not in Ticknor Catalogue. Not located in Orbis, Melvyl, LC online catalogue, or Ariadna. Porbase cites 3 copies in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (all examined personally, all with the same collation as our copy, all in condition inferior to our copy), but none in any other Portuguese libraries. Hollis cites a copy at the Houghton Library (presumably the Palha copy). Porbase locates three copies in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (collation also agrees with our copy), and one in the Biblioteca Central da Marinha (according to the library's printed catalogue, cited above, their copy is "Mutilado faltam 5 folhas finais; enc. muito danificada, folhas manchadas com as primeiras danificadas"). Not located in CCPBE. Not located in Rebiun. Jisc locates a single copy, at British Library.