LOYOLA, Ignazio de
Exercitia spirtualia (With) Directorium in exercitia spiritualia.
Rome, In Collegio Romano, 1615.£4,950.00
8vo. pp. (iv) 150 (vi); 143 (xxv). Roman letter. T-ps within woodcut borders, woodcut Jesuit devices. Woodcut and typographical initials and tailpieces. Light waterstain to lower blank margin of first quire, very occasional light marginal foxing, light waterstain to lower margin towards rear, a very good copy in original vellum, slightly soiled.
Rare and attractive edition of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius of Loyola (1491-1556), who founded the Society of Jesus, first published 1548, with the Official Directory to the Spiritual Exercises issued in 1599. This edition was printed by the Roman College, the Jesuit seminary in Rome founded by Loyola in 1551.
Loyola, a soldier and courtier, wrote the Spiritual Exercises during an intense spiritual awakening: severely wounded at the Siege of Pamplona in 1521, he convalesced at the Benedictine Monastery of Montserrat, where he read Ludolph of Saxony’s Vita Christi, and at Manresa, where he undertook penitence in a cave and read Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi. The result was a model for an active apostolic life as well as one of internal reflection and spirituality, emphasising daily contemplation on the events of Christ’s life, self-examination and prayer.
‘‘The ‘Spiritual Exercises’ form the most famous modern textbook on ascetic discipline, the nature of sin and Christian perfection by grace … inspired by a remarkable fixity of purpose and designed for a clearly defined and practical end: the moulding of character by the precepts of the gospel. Its asceticism is not one of resignation and withdrawal, but full of a positive recognition of active life. It is this characteristic in particular which made the book such a powerful influence when it became … the handbook of the Society of Jesus, which is devoted to educational, missionary and other active works … As a work of religious inspiration the impact of the ‘Exercises’ has been almost as great outside the Society of Jesus as within’ (PMM, pp. 44-45).
Sommervogel V, 63. This ed. not in BM STC C17 It.