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[ Foreword ] [ Prelims ] [ England ] [ Germany ] [ Russia ] [ France ] [ Spain ] [ United States ] [ Various Countries ] [ Afterword ]
SPAIN
CRINITUS, PETRUS. De
Honesta Disciplina, 1532. The censors of seventeenth-century Spain were exact in their
methods. Their religious and civil censorship was cumulated into such books as the Index
Librorum Prohibitorum et Expurgandorum Novissimus, Madrid, Diaz, 1677,* prepared by
the Inquisitor-General Sotomayor. The books condemned or expurgated are arranged
alphabetically, then by class of expurgation. The Index is open to the entry on
Petrus Crinitus' De Honesta Disciplina, Lyons, 1543, which is allowed to be read
"as corrected." Next to the Index is a copy of Crinitus, Basel, 1532.*
The Index directs (among other deletions): "Book 9, chapter 9, before the
middle, after the verb concremata sunt [delete all] up to the end of the
chapter." This copy is exactly so expurgated. Observation shows the method used. The censor has drawn light lines through the offending
passages, after which a clerk has blacked them out, using a thick quill and dark ink. In
addition, on the title page the censor has attested that his work was done according to
the Inquisition of Coimbra and has signed the attestation, July 18, 1725. The passage
excised concerns an eighth century order of Emperor Leo the Isaurian in Byzantium to burn
images in churches and an earlier letter of Theodosius on the subject.
ARANDA, JUAN
de. Lugares Communes de Conceptos, dichos, y Sentencias en Diversas
Materias, Madrid, 1613.* This book on proverbs affords a striking
illustration of the power of the Spanish Inquisition. All through the
book slips of type ornaments have been pasted over censored passages.
On fol. 32 several passages on the devil have been so concealed, but some
curious reader has loosened the edges of the slip in an attempt to read
the text. Among passages concealed
are Galen on knowledge and St. Ambrose on penitence. The Polwarth-Lyell
copy, Salva 2046. The printer, Juan de la Cuesta, printed the first edition
of Don Quixote.
REAL CEDULA de S.M. y Señores
del Consejo, por La Qual se Prohibe la introducción y curso en estos Reynos de los dos
tomos del Diario de Físico de París Correspondientes al año de mil setecientos
noventa... Seville, 1791. The decree
forbidding entry and distribution of the Journal de Physique for 1790, with those
issues of the Journal. The decree is countersigned on folio four verso, just as in
Barruel, (q.v.). (Journal lent by State University of Iowa Library.)
REAL PROVISION de los Señores del Consejo, por la qual se prohibe la
introducción y curso en estos
Reynos de la obra intitulada: Memorias para servir a la Historia del Jacobinismo por el
Abate Barruel,... Seville, 1802.* A proclamation prohibiting the introduction and
distribution in Spain of Abbé Barruel's history of Jacobinism, folio four, verso, bears
the seal and countersignatures of the alcalde and clerk of Seville, authorizing the
proclamation to be tacked to the plaza wall and then distributed.
REAL CEDULA de S.M. y Señores del Consejo por la qual se prohibe la
introducción, y curso en estos Reynos de un
Libro intitulado: Año dos mil quatrocientos y quarenta, con la data de su impresión en
Londres año de 1776, sin nombre de Autor, ni de Impresor. Seville, 1778.* The
proclamation prohibiting introduction into Spain of Mercier's famous Utopian novel LAn
2440. In the introduction to the three-volume edition of 1786 Mercier disavows the
edition here prohibited, charging it is an "impudent falsification" and an
"indecent pillage." It would be interesting to know whether the Spanish censor
objected to the genuine or false parts.
[ Foreword ] [ Prelims ] [ England ] [ Germany ] [ Russia ] [ France ] [ Spain ] [ United States ] [ Various Countries ] [ Afterword ]
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