First Mexican edition and a very early American printing –with newly added American content- of the regulations of the Franciscan order, first set forth in 1541 in Barcelona and here given as revised at Toledo in 1583; produced by the third printer of the Americas, Pedro Ocharte. These statutes formalized the ban on anyone of Jewish ancestry joining the Franciscan order through a "limpieza de sangre" clause (see Martínez, Genealogical Fictions, page 215). Ocharte took over the printing house from Juan Pablos in 1563, who in turn produced the first printed works in the New World; fro 1572 until 1580, he was incarcerated by the Inquisition –his Inquisitor was Perez de Moya- under charges of Lutheranism, he then resumed his activity until 1592.
Leaves 102-9 are devoted to the “Estatutos generales de los Frayles de las Indias”, which are provisions for Franciscan activities in colonial possessions; it also includes the 4-leaf appendix “Tabula capituli generalis intermedii Cismontani Toleti celebrati anno 1583” as issued. It is no coincidence that the regulation refers to Franciscans, as they were among the first religious order to set foot in Mexico, almost at the same time as Cortes. This is a very nice early Mexican printing, boasting an illustrated title page and a full-page woodcut representing Saint Francis.
The work contains all the necessary dispositions for the Franciscan Friars in their daily life and for the proper functioning of the religious institutions, subjects include: the reception and instruction of novices, prayer and silence, keeping poverty vows, the correction of delinquents, etc., on one detailing the punishment for the breaking of vows and the possibly application of torture.
Provenance: Swann Galleries, New York, Sale 2505, lot 256 (April 16, 2019).
García Icazbalceta 96; Medina, Mexico 104; Palau 83547; Sabin 57469 ("excessively rare").
