Relacion Historica del Auto General de Fe Que se Celebro en Madrid Este Ano de 1680 and Auto General de la Fe ... el encendido Azero del Santo Tribunal de la Inquisicion de Granada

Author: José del Olmo (1638-1702)

Year: 1680/1672

Publisher: Roque Rico de Miranda and Francisco Sanchez

Place: Madrid and Granada

Description:

2 works bound together. Relacion Historica del Auto General de Fe Que se Celebro en Madrid Este Ano de 1680. 308 pages with frontispiece lacks the foldout plate. Auto General de la Fe ... el encendido Azero del Santo Tribunal de la Inquisicion de Granada... 58 pages with end graved plate. (1672). Small octavo (7 3/4" x 6") bound in period vellum with handwritten title to spine. (Palau 201026; no record of second work) First editions.

The prime purpose of a trial and death sentence was not to save a heretic's soul, but to ensure the public good and to strike terror into the people. Sentences and abjurations must be read out publicly. For the inquisitors, t was not enough to get the heretic to admit that he had sinned and declare that he had repented. He must be made to do so in public, so that is served as a lesson to all the faithful. This was the object of the ceremony known as the auto de fe. In the course of an auto de fe nobody was executed; only after the ceremony were those sentenced to death handed over to royal justice and taken to the place of execution. Joseph del Olmo's account of what happened in Madrid was horrifying. The condemned were taken to a place of execution and attached to rings between posts, garroted and then set on fire. The texts contains descriptions of the defendants in these ecclesiastical suits and gives vivid and highly suggestive psychological portrait of historical efforts in repression. The second work bound in is by an anonymous author but covers the Auto de Fe in Granada in 1672.

Condition:

Vellum detached from text block, end pages heavy edge wear, lacks ties, corners curled and rubbed else about very good.