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Bound in contemporary vellum, cockled and lightly soiled, with the original ties preserved. A fine copy, with just an early paper repair to leaf M4, no loss, and short tears in the outer margin of lvs. 1-2. Leaf 3 dog-eared. Rare. 3 copies traced in the U.S. (JCB, UC Berkeley, Washington State.). A funeral book marking the obsequies performed in Mexico City for María Luisa of Savoy (1688-1714), queen consort of King Philip V of Spain and Regent of Spain. The book, written by the Mexican Jesuit Lucas Fernández del Rincón, includes an account of the funeral procession, the ceremonies in the Catedral Metropolitana, a detailed description of the decorative program, in particular the catafalque and its intricate symbolism, centered on the image of roses: The book also contains two appendices. The first, with its own dated title page, is the funeral sermon given by Cardinal Carlos Bermudez de Castro, "Regia parentatio exorans pios manes"(Rites for the Royal Mother, entreating the Pious Spirits of the Dead). The second is a Latin elegiac poem by the Irish poet Gerard Moore, "Regina Maria, Aloysa Gabriela, Sabaudiae princeps, vel umbra hispaniarum tutela"("Queen Maria Gabriela, Guardian Shade of the Two Spains"). The text opens with a poem, "Ecos de llanto de una Musa Mexicana" ("Echoes of the lamentation of a Mexican Muse.") "On October 29, 1714, New Spain s viceregal court held funerary honors for the queen consort of Spain, María Luisa Gabriela de Saboya, in its cathedral. The ephemeral funerary pyre , or catafalque, covered almost the entire floor directly below the cupola. Decorated with one thousand candles, the ephemeral structure also held twenty-two statues representing virtues, each clutching a bouquet of flowers, as well as emblems featuring roses intended to represent the queen. At the very top of the pyramidal structure, onlookers could admire a lily growing upwards until just grazing the side of the dome. "As the Jesuit Lucas Fernández del Rincón explained in his description, flowers acted as a metaphor for youth and served as a fitting symbol for a queen who died at just 25 years of age and at the height of her beauty… While still in her teens, María Luisa Gabriela de Saboya, the daughter of Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, and sister of Maria Adelaide, the wife of the French delphine, married Philip V and helped to govern the empire while her husband fought in campaigns, accruing increasingly more responsibilities as the war persisted and she matured. Eventually, the queen fulfilled her primary role and gave birth to four children, all male, with three that survived past infancy… "By the end of her short life at 25, the queen had assured the continuation of Spain s Bourbon dynasty. After years of hearing (or reading) stories of apocalyptic conflict in the Spanish kingdoms and predictions regarding a coming millenarian age, royal subjects in New Spain could then fit María Luisa Gabriela de Saboya s funerary honors comfortably within a narrative of monarchical millenarianism and imperial rebirth. The catafalque in Mexico City s cathedral equated Maria Luisa Gabriela de Saboya to a rose and her husband and surviving sons to lilies. "As Rincón made clear in his description of the catafalque, the queen represented the rose who died at the height of her beauty and power, leaving behind three pimpollos . Another emblem depicted a rose threatened by fire and embraced by a skeleton, representing death. However, as the orator made clear, fire served as a tool that horticulturalists used [to stimulate the plant s fertility] para irritar, y propagar la fecundidad de su raíz . Given this, he felt that [the queen s legacy was assured, despite the fire, in the persons of her three children] Asegurada queda la de nuestra Reyna en sus tres hermosos renuevos, que a despecho de las presentes llamas, colmaron la sucesion Española de Regias plantas . As novohispanos just started to settle into life under the Bourbon dynasty, they lost th. Seller Inventory # 3962
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