VIRGINS AND MARTYRS - PRINT COLLECTION

Pilar Galindo, Nicolás del: Son esta coleccion de S.tas Virgenes y Martires, de Fr. Nicolas del Pilar y Galindo, Carmelita Descalzo. [?Madrid, early 19th century].

Print album titled "Virgins and Martyrs", assembled by the popular Madrid poet Nicolás del Pilar Galindo (Nicolás Galindo) (1772-1854), with his notes on the source, cost and value of the prints, and with nearly half (28 of the 66) of the images with, added by him, extra printed decorative or coloured-paper borders. Galindo was author (1820) of Perrología. a collection of satirical ballads containing conversations between dogs, which evoked the Coloquio de los perros of Cervantes. His unpublished works included imagined dialogues on the Spanish War of Independence, involving the English consul to Alicante. He was a Discalced Carmelite monk, although he was given leave to depart the cloister in 1834 (Romera Valero).

The majority of the present collection (40 of the 66 prints) consists of depictions of women saints. 20 of these are from the series by Adriaen Collaert (1560-1618), Martyrologium sanctarum virginum. Other foreign print-makers represented in the book include the Rome publisher Agapito Franzetti (fl. 1775-1825) (seven prints of women saints and one of the Holy Innocents), and the Augsburg firm of Klauber (18 prints, of which three of women saints).

The Spanish-origin material present includes two items with printed text noting a church in Madrid (where Galindo lived). These may be prints used by devotees of a cult associated with each church. One is of St. Eulalia, advocate against smallpox and recurring (quartan) fevers who is noted to be venerated in Madrid in the church of the Holy Spirit of the Order of Clerics Regular Minor (now destroyed). The other, dated 1762, is for St. Bibiana, advocate for childhood epilepsy, paralysis and heart disease, and is a copy of an image (sculpture?) at the Hospital of Nuestra Señora de la Buena Dicha (since also demolished) - which the beholder of the print is enjoined to venerate. Pasted opposite in the album is another print of Bibiana, noted as "advocate for children against epilepsy and every class of accident".

Having compiled and titled his album, Galindo subsequently added to it. An initial title states "this collection of holy virgins and martyrs is of brother Nicolas Pilar y Galindo, Discalced Carmelite". He adds in a later hand, "[with] added, the [images] of the founders of the religious orders". He notes how many plates there are in the book, changing the number to 66. On the page opposite, Galindo notes the process of acquisition. "The cost was 66 reales at auction, for nothing more than the martyrs [perhaps the Collaert prints], for the others the cost was two reales each, some four reales, but these are seen very little in commerce. And together thus it's worth more than a hundred reales, with the ones that I bought singly from the Klauber catalogue, and others being valuable: in Madrid, up to 68".

Details

One volume, 23.3 cms. x 18.5 cms. in binding, contents as described above. Light browning, some slight worming to gutters, contents loosening. Bound in contemporary polished sheep, spine decorated in gilt, marbled pastedowns and endpapers. (Binding loose at top joint, rubbed, slightly worn).

Provenance:

1. Galindo, as discussed above, woodcut bookplate of (his) Carmelite order to title-page recto.
2. Price in ink to front free endpaper recto: [?]360 reales. (Could it have been offered for sale by Galindo?)
3. Purchase note to title-page of José Maria Sevilla [?]Presto.
4. Blind embossment of same of Antonio Perez [second surname indecipherable]. 

Bibliography:

Ángel Romera Valero, 'La literatura del siglo XIX en Castilla-La Mancha. Ensayo de un canon'. In  Alfonso González-Calero García, ed., Cultura en Castilla-La Mancha en el siglo XIX (Ciudad Real, 2012), 15-136.