Lot 354
Lopez Laguna, Daniel Israel
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 10 January 2007 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Espejo fiel de vidas que contiene los Psalmos de David en verso: obra devota, util, y deleytable. London: [no printer], 5480 [i.e. 1720]. First edition, 4to., engraved frontis. and vignette on the titlepage by Abraham Lopez de Oliveyra, contemporary panelled calf, dried and worn, lacking the lower board, lacking two plates, paper somewhat discoloured throughout.
Footnote
Note: ESTC 125237; Kayserling p. 55; Palau 4, p. 206; Roth 330-1
Important and rare work by the Portuguese Marrano, Daniel Israel Lopez Laguna, "It was the earliest book printed by a resident of Jamaica under British rule." (Cundall History of printing in Jamaica from 1717 to 1834)
Brought up in the South of France, Laguna studied in Spain where he was arrested by the Inquisition. On his release, presumably after reconciliation with the Church, he settled in Jamaica, where in the latter part of the 17th century, after ownership of Jamaica had been settled by the Treaty of Madrid, there were a number of resident Jews who enjoyed freedom of religious worship.
About 1720, Laguna went to London and published the present paraphrase of the Psalms in a variety of Spanish verse forms. The book had originally been planned in prison and represents the fruits of some 23 years of labour. In a number of places, the author makes allusion to the Inquisition and its persecutions. The work is prefaced by various celebratory verses in Spanish, Latin and English. He later returned to Jamaica where he had been naturalised in 1693.