Colonial Woodcut in Book Possibly By an Indigenous Writer
Manual de exercicios para los desagravios de Christo señor nuestro
Publication: México [Mexico City]: Joseph de Jauregui, 1774.
Notes: An 18th century Mexican devotional illustrated with an anonymous woodcut of Pontius Pilate condemning Jesus to death (the first station of the cross). The woodcut is printed on the recto (front) of leaf 04 and inside a frame of fleur-de-lis type ornaments. The cut depicts Pilate in the upper right and Jesus with two soldiers, one binding his hands with rope, in the center. This is a relatively uncommon subject for an 18th century Mexican illustration. While the artist isn't known, "the vast majority" of the publisher's prints were by Mexican artists (see Donohue-Wallace, Prints and Printmakers in Viceregal Mexico City, 1600–1800, p. 149).
The end of Soria's original text is marked by a decorative emblem encircling the text "de la Biblio[teca] Mexicana," on the leaf before the woodcut. This refers to Jauregui's acquisition of the press, Biblioteca Mexicana, which published the sixth edition of this book in 1756. This edition adds "Luz para saber andar la Via Sacra" (19 pages) by the Spanish priest Antonio de la Annunciación (sic) (1632–1713). That text had been published separately in Mexico at least as early as 1727.
This devotional was commissioned by a group of Franciscan Sisters in Tlaxcala, Mexico, who asked Soria to prepare a 33-day cycle of penance (desagravios), with both private and public elements, beginning on September 14 and ending with a procession on October 16. According to Derek Burdette, who wrote about this book in an academic essay on religious literature in colonial Mexico, devotionals like this were the "foundations" of the spiritual life of many women (see Visualizing Sensuous Suffering... Brill, 2018).
Soria's book, first published in the 1680s, and reprinted for more than a century, led to desagravio traditions throughout Latin America, "until there wasn't a church, convent, parish, or chapel" where they weren't celebrated. Soria, who seems to have lived in the 17th century, was born in Puebla, Mexico, and was the "Comisario" of the Franciscan convent in Tlaxcala. He was the "pariente" or relative of the 18th century playwright and poet of the same name (see Biblioteca hispanoa-mericana septentrional, 1821). Trübner's American and Oriental Literary Record (May 15, 1869, p. 459) describes the latter Soria as "one of the most talented indigenous poets of Mexico." Whether the author of Manual de exercicios was also indigenous is hard to say. Your cataloguer notes, however, that the Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Bancroft Library includes a 1718 Nahuatl translation of a history of Tlaxcala (Ystoria y fundación de la Ciudad de Tlaxcala) described as "sacada por Francisco de Soria de lengua castellana a esta Mexicana" (rendered by Francisco de Soria from Spanish into the Mexican language).
[128] pages: [A]–Q^4. 24mo. 4 by 5-7/16 inches.
Edition + Condition: Seventh or eighth edition (?); first apparently with this woodcut. A very good copy in contemporary vellum with a bit of loss to the corners. Previous owner's signature dated September 13, 1775, the day before the annual month-long desagravio period began.
Item No: #365404
Price: $1,250