De vita Francisci Xaverii … libri sex. Quibus accesserunt eiusdem Xaverii Epistolarum libri quatuor

In-4°; pp. (10), 318, (2),; (8), 161, (3), con un bel ritratto di Francesco Saverio finemente inciso su rame da Theodor Galle; vari esemplari, tra cui quello alla Biblioteca Casanatense di Roma e quella dell’Università di Granada, come il nostro sono prive della carta *6; le Epistole hanno un proprio frontespizio, entrambi con monogramma della Società di Gesù inciso su legno. Nota di possesso manoscritta all’ultima sguardia.Legatura in piena pergamena coeva. Bellissimo esemplare.The third edition of De Vita Francisci Xaverii (the first in Rome 1594, another issues in Antwerp in the same 1596 containing only De vita) and the first of the Epistolae. This 1596 edition of the saint’s biography is better then the one of 1594 because revised by the author and complete.St Francis Xavier (1506-52), a companion of Ignatius of Loyola and co-founder od the Jesuit order, was a leader of the first Jesuit missions to India, southeast Asia and Japan. Orazio Torsellino was an italian Jesuit; he achieved great popularity with this work, which had numerous editions and translations, and with his first and principal early printed collection of Xavier’s letter, including many from Japan, available at the end of the 16th century. This first edition remained standard for many years and also for 17th cent. editions.This is the first collection of writings by St. Francisco Xavier. In 1540, he set off as a missionary to Asia. From there in the midst of ten years of incessant labor, 1542 - 1554, he produced 137 letters and instructions. The translator and editor of this volume, Orazio Torsellini in this place presented 52 letters. This collection of Xavier letters is very important in the story of China andJapan. Streit Iv, p. 290; Cordier col. 128; Sommervogel VIII, col. 140.