Recent Acquisitions - Richard C. Ramer Old & Rare Books

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richard c. ramer
Delisle (called “Delisle de Sales”). Like many contemporary French works, Delisle’s was
not widely circulated in Portugal due to the heavy hand of the censors. Probably for that
reason, not only O Filosofo Solitario but all the pamphlets that soon appeared attacking
and defending it were published anonymously. In the first part the author points out
that everything written about the anatomy of man in O Filosofo Solitario is incorrect. In
the Reposta segunda the author attacks two assertions of the Filosofo: that solitude is better
than society and that medicine is futile—an idea that would have particularly enraged
Mello Franco, given his profession. He also quotes at length from de Sales, to prove that
the Filosofo is a plagiarist. The Reposta and Reposta segunda appeared just after Mello
Franco’s Reino da estupidez began circulating in manuscript, and shortly before his Tratado
da educação fysica dos meninos appeared in 1790.
Mello Franco (1757-1823), a native of Minas Gerais, practiced medicine in Lisbon
until 1817, when he returned to Brazil. He was frequently in trouble with the authorities
for his liberal writings and associations and spent several years imprisoned by the
Inquisition. His Tratado da educação fysica dos meninos, Lisbon 1790, is the first book on
pediatrics by a Brazilian. Reino da estupidez, a satirical poem aimed at the professors of
Coimbra, was circulating anonymously in manuscript as early as 1785 (the first printed
version was not until 1818), and caused an enormous scandal.
j Borba de Moraes (1983) I, 320; Período colonial pp. 138-40. Sacramento Blake III, 46.
Innocêncio II, 306 and III, 11. Saraiva and Lopes, História da literatura portuguesa (1976) pp.
708, 719. Not in Pires de Lima, Catálogo da Bibliotheca da Escola Medico-Cirurgica do Porto.
Not located in Lisbon, Faculdade de Medicina, Catálogo da Colecção Portuguesa. Not in
Bosch, Palha or Rodrigues. Not in JCB, Portuguese and Brazilian Books. Not in Wellcome.
Not in Azevedo-Samodães, Ameal or Avila-Perez. Not located in NUC. Not located
in RLIN. OCLC: The first part not located in OCLC; 70862353 (Newberry Library; the
second part ONLY). Porbase locates four complete sets, two at the Biblioteca João Paulo
II of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa, and one each at the Biblioteca Nacional de
Portugal and the Biblioteca Pública Municipal do Porto. Porbase also locates five additional
copies of the first part only, four in the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal and one
at the Biblioteca João Paulo II of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa. Porbase further
locates two additonal copies of the second part only, at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal,
and one at the Biblioteca João Paulo II of the Universidade Católica Portuguesa.
Neither part located in Copac.
Unrecorded [?] Variant Issue, With Twenty Preliminary Leaves,
All of Which Contain Text
71. GALHEGOS, Manoel de. Gigantomachia. Lisbon: Pedro Crasbeeck,
1626 [i.e., 1628]. 4°, eighteenth-century cat’s paw sheep (very slight
wear), spine gilt with raised bands in five compartments, crimson
leather lettering piece in second compartment from head, gilt letter.
Engraved architectural title page with arms of the dedicatee, D. António
de Menezes, within arch at top. Woodcut initials and tailpieces. Typographical
headpieces. A very good to fine copy. Old oval stamp of
the library of the monastery of Alcobaça on blank verso of title page.
Circular red-on-white monogramed bookplate with serrated edges
of Ricardo Heredia, with his three-line ink inscription at top of recto,