Historia Christi Persice conscripta, simulque multis modis contaminata, a P. Hieronymo Xavier, Soc. Jesu. Latine reddita & animadversionibus notata a Ludovico de Dieu [suivi de] Rudimenta linguae Persicae. Accedunt duo priora capita Geneseos, ex Persica translatione Iac. Tawusi

Rare first edition.

Full vellum binding over boards with flaps, smooth spine, title inked partly faded at the spine head, some blemishes on the boards, edges spotted red.
A fine and rare copy.

Bookseller’s descriptive labels pasted on an endpaper.
Backer & Sommervogel VIII, 1339-1340 (considers the two parts as separate works). Willems, 490 (clearly explains that the two parts form a single title, published at once) and 477 (for the Persian grammar, which forms a separate title and constitutes the second attempt of its kind for Western use).

A most curious composition by the Spanish Jesuit Jeronimo Espeleta (1549-1617), who adopted the name Javier out of deference to his relative, the famous Apostle of the Indies, presented by a Dutch Protestant, Louis Dedieu (1590-1642), with the aim of demonstrating that Catholics, in the missions of the East, deliberately altered sacred texts and intermixed them with non-canonical fables. Consequently, this very first account of the life of Christ and Saint Peter in Persian, produced by this devoted missionary at the request of the Mughal emperor Akbar the Great, attracted the attention of the Index, particularly on account of Dedieu’s comments.

This publication notably offers readers the very first Persian grammar, issued ten years before John Greaves, together with an excerpt from the first book ever printed in Persian: Jacob Tawus’s translation of the Pentateuch.

Provenance: William Bolts, with his autograph ownership inscription at the head of the title-page: Gulielmi Bolts.
William Bolts (1739-1808), a Dutch merchant active in India, is best known for his celebrated Etat civil, politique et commerçant du Bengale (1775).