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MNEMONIC POETRY BY A MEXICAN JESUIT IN EXILE. Large 8vo, 2 parts in 1. VIII pp, 172 pp; 187 pp, (1). Bound in early 20th century quarter Spanish calf. Clean and fresh, crisply printed. First edition of this example of Mexican ars memorandi, printed in Spanish with great difficulty (II, pp. 186-7) by a Cesena printer entirely ignorant of that language. Lozano (1721-1801) had arrived in Mexico as a young Jesuit in 1744, teaching at the Colegios of Oaxaca, Durango, Zacatecas, and Las Parras. With the expulsion of the Order in 1767, Lozano fled to norther Italy seemingly a common destination for Mexican ex-Jesuits. The present work was intended as a versified aide memoire to key scriptural passages, and a second edition finally appeared in Mexico in 1794. Although no longer a Jesuit, Lozano dedicates his work al Patriarcha San Ignacio Loyola . In his preface, he remarks that he was inspired to publish the present work by reading of the Archbishop of Mexico s patronage of a lengthy metaphysical poem on the difference between temporal and eternal. The Archbishop was so impressed by the work that he had it printed at his own expense from the author s manuscript, and Lozano wishes to add to his own efforts in the decima castellana to the fray. His Recuerdos de las Eternas Verdades thus consists of 920 decimas divided into 14 sections, each recalling a different eternal truth . Beginning with Death, Hell, and Purgatory, Lozano eventually proceeds onto more light-hearted themes like Glory, Universal Justice, and God s Mercy. Each stanza is printed alongside the words of Scripture which the reader was presumably intended to memorize, on the same theme. At the end of Part II, we find a supplementary sonnet, "A la Mexicana Virgen de Guadalupe" (II, p. 184), which begins "Yo vi una vez pintura soberana / que en México copió divino Apeles…". Lozano entered the Society of Jesus in 1737 and arrived in the Province of Mexico in 1744. After teaching in Oaxaca, Puebla, Durango, Zacatecas, and Las Parras, he fled to Italy and settled in Bologna (1770-1775) and Imola (1783-1798), finally returning to Spain in 1798 just before his death in 1801. OCLC shows a single US copy of this first edition, at Harvard. The second edition (Mexico, 1794) is more widely held; and a third, expanded edition appeared at Valencia in 1800. * cf Medina, La Imprenta en México IV, 8389; De Backer-Sommervogel V, col. 130. Seller Inventory # D0334
Bibliographic Details
Title: Recuerdos de las Eternas Verdades, ...
Publisher: Gregorio Biasini, Cesena
Publication Date: 1788
Edition: 1st Edition
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