De Vilaplana First Edition of Vida portentosa del americano septentrional

De VILAPLANA, Hermenegildo (18th Century).
Vida portentosa del americano septentrional apostol, el V. P. Fr. Antonio Margil de Jesus .
Mexico [City]: Imprenta de la Bibliotheca Mexicana, 1763. First edition.

Small quarto (8" x 6"). Title-page printed in red and black. With an engraved portrait, woodcut head- and tail-pieces and initials (portrait and first 9 leaves of text supplied from a shorter copy).

Bound in contemporary limp vellum, with remains of two pairs of leather ties (extremities of front covers worn, endpapers renewed). With a marginal notation (perhaps to a Jesuit reference) at the upper edge of p. 19.

An early and important biography of the Venerable Padre Antonio Margil de Jesus (1657-1726) who, with Espinosa ("the apostle of Texas"), accompanied Domingo Ramón's 1716 expedition into Texas and founded the missions of Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, San Miguel de Linares de los Adaes (the first church built in Louisiana), and Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de los Nacogdoches. Margil also established the mission of San Jose on the San Antonio River and the building of the convent on the site of La Salle's fort overlooking Espiritu Santo Bay.

Howes V 98; Jenkins 59(n.); Sabin 99614; Wagner, Spanish Southwest 142.