MOLINA, ALONSO DE. d.1535.
Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana.... Mexico: Antonio de Spinosa, 1571.
2 parts in 1 volume. Folio (279 x 194 mm). *4 a-o8 p10; [a]2 A-T8 U10. Double column. First title page with large woodcut coat of arms, second with almost full-page woodcut of Saint Francis, woodcut of figure kneeling in prayer at end of first work, woodcut printer's devices at colophons. Early 19th century Spanish marbled calf, elaborately gilt, red and green morocco lettering pieces. Some dampstaining and intermittent browning, a few leaves including part 1 title extended (and m1 with loss of 1 letter), tiny rusthole to a5 affecting 2 letters, paper flaw to p5 with loss of 3 letters, part 2 supplied from another copy and with repaired worming, some other small wormholes (some repaired), light rubbing to binding.
Provenance: few instances early marginalia; Joseph O'Campo (later inscription at foot of dedication tracing ownership from Matthias J. Gonsales, J. Martinez Onelon and Phelippe Aleman); Estelle Doheny (morocco bookplate; her sale, Christie's New York, Feb 1, 1988, lot 247).
A MEXICAN INCUNABLE: THE FIRST DICTIONARY OF THE NEW WORLD, second edition overall and first complete edition; in Spanish and Nahuatl, the Aztec language. The first edition (1555) comprises 259 quarto leaves, the present is expanded to 283 folios.
"This second and enlarged edition is so scarce that forty years ago Lord Kingsborough paid 50 guineas for it. The Buyer should be careful to secure a copy with title-pages to both parts, for sometimes the first title-page being deficient the enterprise of a dealer induces him to put the second in its place, as it reads nearly the same; the woodcut however, represents San Francisco, and differs from the escutcheon on the first title. Rich and other bibliographers erroneously supposed that this was the first book printed in America" (Sabin 49867). Church 116; Huntington Mexico in the 16th Century 1; JCB I:246; Medina 65; Palau 174352; Wagner 60. VERY RARE COMPLETE.