Relacion historial de las missiones de los Indios, que llaman Chiquitos, que estan á cargo de los Padres de la Compañía de Jesus de la Provincia del Paraguay
Author: Juan Patricio Fernández (1667-1733)
Year: 1726
Publisher: Manuel Fernández
Place: Madrid
Description:
z[20], 452, [3] pages. Small quarto (7 3/4" x 5 3/4") bound in full leather with red label to spine in gilt lettering. (European Americana 726/209; Medina, BHA 2579, Palau 87899; Sabin 24135) First edition.
Juan Patricio Fernández entered the Society of Jesus in 1683, and while he was a Theology student he was sent to the Jesuit missions of Paraguay.
In 1691 he arrived in Buenos Aires with the expedition of Father Antonio Parra. In 1696, he was sent to the missions of Chiquitos (Bolivia), to work in the reductions of San Javier, San Rafael and San José, and in 1699 he founded the reduction of San Juan. Later, in 1704, he returned to the San Rafael reduction, where the following year he tried to discover a route that would connect the Chiquitos reductions with those of the Guaraní through the Paraguay River, but he did not succeed as he could not cross the Jarayes swamps. The direct path was not discovered until 1766 by the Jesuit José Sánchez Labrador. Juan Patricio Fernández was superior of the Chiquitos missions, from 1707 to 1709, with residence in San José.
Jerónimo Herrán, attorney of the province of Paraguay, publishes a Historical Account of the Jesuistic Mission in Paraguay in the Nation of the Chiquitos (Madrid, 1726), composed—according to Baptista and Storni—with the writings of Juan Patricio Fernández y P. Domingo Bandiera. This work was translated into German (Vienna, 1729) and Latin (Vienna, 1733).
Condition: Moderate wear; toning, intermittent dampstaining and foxing else a good copy of the rare Spanish edition "Borba de Moraes, page I:305."
