Compendio das Chronicas da Ordem de Nossa Senhora do Carmo.

[Lisbon], Per Antonio Gonçalvez, 1572.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. Folio (28.2 x 19 cm.), eighteenth-century (third quarter?) mottled sheep, spine richly gilt with raised bands in six compartments (a few pinpoint wormholes), crimson leather lettering-piece in second compartment from head, gilt short title, text-block edges rouged. Title-page with woodcut border comprised of caryatids, flowers and fruit. Full-page woodcut of the Carmelite arms on the final leaf. Large woodcut initials. Text in 2 columns. Four small holes in title page, touching a few letters without loss. Minor worming at fore-edge, not affecting text. Mild dampstain on a few leaves. In very good condition. Eighteenth-century stamps of the Duques de Lafões on verso of title-page and on first leaf of main text. (10 ll.), 220 pp., (1 l.). *** FIRST and ONLY (?) EDITION of this Carmelite chronicle, followed (in Book 2) by precepts, exhortations and rules for living. After flourishing in England during the thirteenth century, the Carmelite Order spread throughout Europe. A separate and distinct branch, the Barefoot Carmelites, was formed after St. Theresa of Ávila instituted monasteries and nunneries with much stricter rules of observance. This reformed branch did not enter Portugal until the 1580s, but the original Order was popular there in the mid-sixteenth century, and by the late sixteenth century, had more monasteries than any other religious order in Portugal except the Jesuits and Franciscans. Chapters 19-21 of Book 1 (pp. 76-92) chronicle the history of the Carmelites in Portugal and the exploits of the fourteenth-century feudal lord Nuno Álvarez Pereira, who is said to have introduced the Order into Portugal.Provenance: Collection of the Duques de Lafões. The second Duque de Lafões, D. João Carlos de Bragança Sousa Ligne Tavares Mascarenhas da Silva (1719-1806) was of the closest possible affinity to the royal house: his father was the legitimized son of D. Pedro II. A nobleman of great talent and public spirit, he led the aristocratic opposition to the Marquês de Pombal. He was also a man of great culture, and while living in exile during Pombal's tenure assisted both Gluck and Mozart. In the quarter-century after Pombal's fall, the Duque de Lafões became a dominant public figure, holding high public offices and founding the Real Academia das Sciencias de Lisboa to assure that Portugal would share the benefits of the Enlightenment. (See Castro e Almeida, Lista de ex-libris heráldicos portugueses 205, and Grande enciclopedia XIV, 543-5.) Parts of his library were dispersed in the late nineteenth century; other parts after the political events of 1974.*** Innocêncio VII, 275. King Manuel 135. Anselmo 695. Barbosa Machado III, 713. Pinto de Mattos (1970) p. 179. British Museum, Pre-1601 Spanish/Portuguese STC (1966), p. 132. Palha 2502. Azevedo-Samodães 787. Not in Adams. Not in Coimbra, Reservados or Suplemento; Lisbon, Academia das Ciências, Livros quinhentistas portugueses; or Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, Catálogo dos impressos de tipografia portuguesa do século XVI. Not in HSA. Porbase locates two copies: Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal ("folhas soltas … encadernação danificada"), and the Faculdade de Letras da Universidade de Coimbra ("f. restauradas … manuseamento"). Jisc locates a copy at the Middle Temple Library. NUC: DCU.