Skip to main content

This auction has ended. View lot details

You may also be interested in

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

Lot 2

ANDRÉS (JUAN)
Confusio Sectae Mahometanae. Interprete ex idiomate Italico Johanne Lauterbach, Utrecht, Jan van Waesberge, 1656

25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

£2,000 - £3,000

Own a similar item?

Submit your item online for a free auction estimate.

How to sell

Looking for a similar item?

Our Books & Manuscripts specialists can help you find a similar item at an auction or via a private sale.

Find your local specialist

Ask about this lot

ANDRÉS (JUAN)

Confusio Sectae Mahometanae. Interprete ex idiomate Italico Johanne Lauterbach, woodcut printer's device on title, some light soiling and browning, title cropped at inner margin affecting 2 letters, without final blank, modern calf-backed boards [Brunet I, 266], 8vo, Utrecht, Jan van Waesberge, 1656

Footnotes

A controversial work on Islam, first published in 1515 as Libro que se llama confusión de la Secta Mahometana y del Alcorán. Its author, Juan Andrés, was a Muslim Faqīh or religious jurist from Valencia who was converted to Christianity in 1487, although his identity is still the subject of debate. Andres claims he was sent to Granada by Ferdinand and Isabel after the conquest of 1492, with the aim of converting any remaining Muslims, and that as part of mission he wrote the Confusión, a vicious attack on Islam based on Islamic sources. The work had a strong influence in the anti-Muslim controversy of the Renaissance, and continued to fuel the debate on Islam up until the time of Humphrey Prideaux's Life of Mahomet, published in 1698. All editions of the work are scarce, and we can find no trace of this Latin edition having been offered at auction in the post-war period.

Provenance: John Caley (1760–1834, archivist and Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, author of On the Origin of the Jews in England), inscription on fly-leaf ("Joh. Caley/ Hosp[iti]. Greiens[is]..."); 'British Museum Sale Duplicate 1787', black ink stamp on verso of title; A. Harvie, 1888, inscription on verso of fly-leaf.

Additional information

Bid now on these items