First edition, 1638 El Macabeo Poema Heroica de Miguel de Silveira

The 1638 first edition of El Macabeo Poema Heroico de Miguel de Silveira. This copy missing two leaves, which I've provided (loose) in facsimile (printed on acid-free laid paper) so the buyer will have the full context. A cost-effective option for owning this important work, at the time of listing this copy I find only one other copy on the market (Libreria Boulandier) offered for approx. $7,000 USD.

Jewish Encyclopedia - "Silveyra (Silveira) studied philosophy at Coimbra, and jurisprudence, medicine, and mathematics at Salamanca; and for twenty years lectured at the Spanish court on different branches of science and on poetry. At an advanced age he went to Naples with his patron, Ramon Philip de Guzman, Duke of Medina de la Torres, and here his great heroic poem El Macabeo, Poema Heroico en Octavos appeared (1638). Silveyra, who was a relative of Thomas de Pinedo, has been placed among the Jewish poets by Daniel Levi de Barrios, while Dieze and Ticknor doubt if he was ever a professing Jew. Antonio Enriques Gomez, in the prologue to his Samson Nazareno, classes Silveyra with such poets as Camoens, while others, on account of his grandiloquent style, value him but little.”

Bibliographic Details -

Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC) numbers 5031148 and 4013613; found in many of the world's best libraries, including the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, the BnF, Cambridge (U.K.), Houghton Library (Harvard) and the Beinecke (Yale).

Physical Attributes -

Measures approx. 21.5 x 15 x 5 cm. Signed in four (4to). Leather binding. Spine with four raised bands; title in gilt on red morocco label. Text block sprinkled red. Illustrated title page. 18 of 20 illustrations. Some decorate initials, head and tailpieces.

Missing two leaves, that were illustrated, signed D4 (30/31) and Iiii1 (591/92). I've printed the missing pages (from a digital copy) on acid-free laid paper, and included them loose to give full context of the book.

Pages - viii, 1-30, 33-590, 593-622

Collation - a4, A-D3, E-Z4, Aa-Zz4, Aaa-Zzz4, Aaaa-Hhhh4, Iiii2-Mmmm4

Condition -

See pictures.

Missing two leaves with illustrations, leaves D4 (Book 2 illustration) and Iiii1 (book 20 illustration); I've printed both on acid-free laid paper to give full context.

Binding old and dry; edges and corners worn; some rubs and chips to boards. Top and bottom of spine chipped; spine crazed, gilt lost, remnants of a ticket and white shelfmark. Some worming to pastedowns/board and flyleaf; worming also at top of gutter in text block extending to page 30. Some bookseller numbers on endpapers. Gutter cracked at endpapers.

Text block toned throughout, with occasional fox spots, thumbing, dog-eared corners, page-edge chip, stray ink mark, etc. Pages 59-62 smaller, making me think they were taken from another copy; also, illustration damaged at book 3. 1" tear bottom leaf R2. H4 illustration mounted not centered, trimming edge of bottom and fore-edge. Corner Mm2, Kkk3 bottom chipped. Yyy4 with tear from fore-edge across page. Moisture mark from bottom corner near end.