UNUSUAL FRONTISPIECE

Deville, Antoine: O governador de praças [...] traduzido na lingoa Portugueza por ordem de Sua Magestade. Lisboa, na officina de Antonio Pedrozo Galram 1708.

Rare Portuguese translation of the popular work De la charge des gouverneurs des places (1639), by the French soldier and military engineer Antoine Deville (1596-1656). Publishers of the text in its original French had included the powerful business of Abraham and Bonaventure Elzevier in Leiden (1640). The outstanding and unusual feature of the present Portuguese edition is the intaglio frontispiece, which features a fortification facing gun implacements (a battery in foreground firing), the scene placed within a wreath and scrolled borders.

Details

One volume, 17.4 cms. x 11.9 cms., octavo, pp. [10] 519 [1] + eight throw-out intaglio diagrams. Intaglio frontispiece (letters partially traced with ballpoint). Two woodcut diagrams in text respectively at pp. 429 and 430. Copy lightly soiled and stained, a hole in the throwout illustration opposite p. 132, bound in chocolate calf, spine decorated in gilt with label of red morocco gilt, edges mottled red (binding rubbed, slightly wormed, loss at head and splitting at head of top joint). Inscription to verso of last page, crossed out. Bookplate of important bibliophile Aníbal Fernandes Tomás (1846-1911) (”Annibal Fernandes Thomaz”) and stamps of his contemporary, Pedro Augusto Ferreira, priest of Miragaia, Porto (1832-1911) (”Pedro Ferreira, Abbade de Miragaya, Porto”). 

Not located in PORBASE. Copy located at Harvard (OCLC 612455457).

On owner Tomás, see post by José Manuel Almeida, Universidade do Penedo, 17 May 2016, at https://www.facebook.com/UniversidadeDoPenedo/posts/960510910737003/ (accessed 30 August 2022).

On owner Ferreira, see https://www.arquivoalbertosampaio.org/details?id=21255 (accessed 30 August 2022).