RIBADENEIRA, Pietro.

A good copy of the first Italian edition of the life of St Francisco de Borja (1510-72), an Americanum, with mentions of Florida, Brazil, Peru, and New Spain. Born and raised in Toledo, Pedro de Ribadeneyra (1527-1611) joined the Jesuit order in 1540 under Ignatius of Loyola, of whom he would later write the first biography. After studying theology and rhetoric at Leuven, Paris and Padua, he taught at Italian and German Jesuit colleges, was sent on missions to Belgium and England by Ignatius himself and held important posts in Italy. His ‘Vita’ was first published in Spanish in 1592, and translated into Italian by Giulio Zanchini. Borja was Duke of Gandía and a nephew once removed of Emperor Charles V, in whose court he served as a young man. In 1546, after the death of his wife, he entered the newly-formed Society of Jesus; from 1555, he was Jesuit commissary-general of Spain and the Indies, and then Superior General. ‘Vita’ recounts how, before he took office, no Jesuits had penetrated the West Indies under the Crown of Castile. However, a mission was quickly organised to Florida, and another in 1568, after the first had ended tragically. A most interesting description of their travel through the unknown wilderness is provided, as they carried all the ritual objects and books for the mass; again, they were all killed by the native inhabitants who, shortly after, fell to the ground, dead, after looking at the devotional books left behind by the Jesuits. Another section discusses New Spain, mentioning the travel of the first Jesuits who entered Peru, as well as the death of over 40 Jesuits on their way to Brazil, by the hands of Protestant crews with whom they crossed paths at sea. Many of the narratives include miracles enacted by sacred images and scenes of martyrdom.

Marchese Alessandro Valori was a Florentine aristocrat in the second half of the C17. His circle of intellectual friends met regularly at his Villa d’Empoli. Corso de’ Ricci was a C18 ‘canonicus’ in Florence, an ardent anti-Jesuit and brother of the Jesuit General.