La Imprenta en Lima (1584-1824)

4 volumes: xcviii+487 pages with numerous facsimile title pages and index; 609 pages with facsimile title pages and index; 582 pages with facsimile title pages ad index; 402 pages with index. Quarto (12" x 8 1/2") rebound in brown cloth and black uniform labels in gilt lettering and original wrappers bound in. First edition limited to 300 copies.

Includes over 4000 titles with many title pages and wood-cuts reproduced, arranged in chronological order. He goes into great detail about virtually every book. Introduction deals with the individual printers and printing houses.

Jose Toribio Medina was born on October 21, 1852, in Santiago, Chile. His father was a judge, Jose of the Medina Pillar, and his mother, Mariana Zavala, was of Basque ancestry. When he was three years old, Medina's father was named judge of Talca. There Medina attended a private school called Santiago. In 1860 the family was transferred to Valparaiso, but just two years later Medina's father became a quadriplegic when he was only 33 years old. Medina's father was sent to live in Santiago, and his mother was given a government pension on which to live and support the family. In 1865 Medina entered the National Institute and graduated in 1869, awarded with prizes in Latin and literature. Medina received an appointment as secretary of the Chilean legation to Lima, Peru, the same year he graduated law school. While in Lima he discovered the remarkable National Library under the guidance of its director, Francisco de Paula Rodriguez Vigil. Medina was not partial to diplomatic work, though it enabled him to travel and to saturate himself in the work he came to love as an investigator into the history of Chile through its volumes of documents. By 1875 he published his first volume of documentary history, a 17th century manuscript, Memories of the Kingdom of Chile and Don Francisco Meneses, written by Friar Juan de Jesus Maria. His travel became increasingly frequent, both to Europe and to the United States, digging through archives and searching to fill his bibliographies. In 1877 he published a 1,300-page volume titled History of the Colonial Literature of Chile. He went on to publish numerous bibliographies of works printed in the colonial period through out Latin America.

Condition:

Some pages age darkened else a very good set.