[MEXICAN INCUNABLE] Vocabulario de Alonso Molina. México, Antonio de Espinosa 1571.

MOLINA, ALONSO DE

VOCABULARIO EN LENGUA CASTELLANA Y MEXICANA. [WITH] VOCABULARIO EN LENGUA MEXICANA Y CASTELLANA. MEXICO: EN CASA DE ANTONIO DE SPINOSA, 1571.

Two works in one. Folio (268 x 185 mm). Test in Nahuatl and Spanish. First title (supplied in facsimile, with full page of "licencias"in manuscript to verso) with arms of Don Martin Enriquez, colophon with woodcut of figure kneeling in prayer (r) and printer's device (v), second title with large woodcut of St. Francis, second colophon with woodcut printer's device (r) and large woodcut Christogram (v). First 3 ff of text re-hinged, several leaves with paper repairs, title and last few ff of book 2 remargined, scattered papers repairs, some with loss to text and replaced in manuscript in a later hand, some areas of staining and/or soiling. Heavily annotated throughout in an early scholarly hand. Full Mexican tree calf, spine gilt in compartments with morocco label. Some rubbing to extremities, tear to head of spine. Housed in a custom slip-case.

The First Nahuatl to Spanish dictionary, and indeed the first complete bilingual Spanish & Nahuatl Dictionary. The present work has traditionally been described as the second edition of Molina's monumental Vocabulario en lengua Catellana y Mexicana of 1555 (see lot 2199), being the first Spanish to Nahautl dictionary, however this interpretation reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the differences between the two texts; a second edition would consist of numerous changes and edits to the text of the first edition, however the present work incorporates an entire 162 pages of text that do not appear in the first edition at all, consisting of the first ever Nahautl to Spanish dictionary. These two editions together constitute the very first bilingual Spanish to Nahuatl and then Nahauatl to Spanish dictionary ever printed —a monumental achievement, especially when one understands that the underlying syntatic structures of the two languages could not be more different. 

"This second and enlarged edition is so scarce that forty years ago Lord Kingsborough paid 50 guineas for it. The Buyer should be careful to secure a copy with title-pages to both parts, for sometimes the first title-page being deficient the enterprise of a dealer induces him to put the second in its place, as it reads nearly the same; the woodcut however, represents San Francisco, and differs from the escutcheon on the first title. Rich and other bibliographers erroneously supposed that this was the first book printed in America" (Sabin 49867)

LITERATURE:

Church 116; Huntington Mexico in the 16th Century 1; JCB I:246; Medina 65; Palau 174352; Wagner 60. 

PROVENANCE:

Miguel Angel Porrua (Ex-Libris)