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

First edition, bringing together in a single volume the three Persian sections issued by the Elzeviers at Leiden in 1639: the Historia Christi Persice conscripta and Historia S. Petri Persice, forming the two parts of a single publication, followed by Louis de Dieu's separately titled Rudimenta linguae Persicae. Backer & Sommervogel VIII, 1339-1340; Willems 490 and 477.

Contemporary full stiff vellum with overlapping edges, smooth spine with an early manuscript title partly faded at head, some staining to covers, red-speckled edges. Earlier booksellers' description labels mounted on a flyleaf. An attractive copy.

Provenance: William Bolts (1739-1808), with his autograph ownership inscription "Gulielmi Bolts" at the head of the title-page. Initially employed by the East India Company in Bengal and later one of its most outspoken critics, Bolts published his Considerations on India Affairs in London in 1772; Jean-Nicolas Démeunier's French translation appeared in 1775 as État civil, politique et commerçant du Bengale.

The history of the text begins nearly forty years before its appearance in print, at the Mughal court. Jerónimo Xavier (1549-1617), grand-nephew of Francis Xavier, lived at Lahore and Agra in close contact with the court of Akbar and his successors. At the emperor's request he composed a life of Christ intended to present Christianity in the language and intellectual forms of the Mughal court. Completed at Agra in 1602, the Mirʾāt al-Quds was rendered into Persian with the collaboration of the court scholar ʿAbd al-Sattar ibn Qasim Lahori, whose substantial role in shaping the Persian text is now firmly established.

This work, together with a Persian life of St Peter produced in the same missionary milieu, reached the Dutch Republic during the 1630s. Louis de Dieu (1590-1642), a Protestant minister and Oriental scholar at Leiden, published the Persian texts in 1639 with Latin translations and extensive annotations. His linguistic purpose was inseparable from a distinctly confessional one: de Dieu believed that Xavier had mingled the Gospel narrative with apocryphal traditions and Catholic missionary elaborations, which his commentary set out to identify and refute. The title itself makes his position explicit in describing the Historia Christi as "multis modis contaminata".

The publication thus acquired a strikingly paradoxical history. Originally composed to further Jesuit missionary work before a Muslim ruler, the Persian life of Christ became at Leiden an instrument of Protestant controversy against Catholic missionaries. De Dieu's edition was itself subsequently placed on the Index, where the Historia Christi Persice is explicitly listed under his name as translator and annotator.

His work on the Persian manuscripts led directly to the Rudimenta linguae Persicae. Written at the printers' request, this compact manual is divided into four sections dealing with the elements of the language, verbs, nouns and pronouns, and particles. The Encyclopaedia Iranica describes it as the first Persian grammar published in Europe. De Dieu himself acknowledged the assistance afforded by the Orientalist circle at Leiden, including lexicographical material supplied by Johannes Elichman and Jacob Golius.

De Dieu appended the first two chapters of Genesis from the Persian Pentateuch of Rabbi Jacob Tawus, first printed at Istanbul in 1546 in Hebrew characters. He retranscribed the text into Perso-Arabic script, turning it into a practical reading exercise for European students. Within a few leaves, the volume therefore brings together a Christian text created at Akbar's court and one of the earliest biblical texts ever printed in the Persian language.

A century later, the book belonged to William Bolts, whose own career likewise unfolded between Europe and India. His "Gulielmi Bolts" on the title-page gives the volume an unusually coherent later history: conceived in Mughal India, studied and printed at Leiden for some of the earliest European readers of Persian, it eventually entered the library of one of the most critical contemporary observers of European power in Bengal.

From Akbar's court to Leiden, and from Leiden to the library of William Bolts, this volume spans two centuries of European engagement with India and its languages.