Nicolás Antonio

NICOLÁS ANTONIO (Seville, 1617-Madrid, 1684).
"Biblioteca Hispania Nova sobre autores españoles". 2 volumes.
Printer: Joaquín Ibarra, 1788.
It has engravings and parchment covers of the twentieth century.
In good condition.
Measurements: 37,5 x 27,5 x 9 cm (x2).
Nicolás Antonio was a Spanish bibliographer born in Seville. After graduating from Salamanca (1636-1639), he returned to his hometown, wrote his treatise De Exilio (which was not printed until 1659) and began his monumental record of Spanish writers. The fame of his erudition reached Philip IV, who conferred on him the Order of Santiago in 1645, and sent him as Agent General to Rome in 1654. His Bibliotheca Hispana nova, dealing with the works of Spanish authors who flourished after 1500, appeared in Rome in 1672, under the title Bibliotheca Hispana sive Hispanorum; the Bibliotheca Hispana vetus, a literary history of Spain from the time of Augustus to the end of the 15th century, was revised by Manuel Marti, and published by Antonio's friend Cardinal Jose Saenz de Aguirre in Rome in 1696. An excellent edition of both parts, with additional material found in Antonio's manuscripts, and with supplementary notes by Francisco Pérez Bayer, was published in Madrid in 1787-1788. This great work, incomparably superior to any previous bibliography, remains unsurpassed and indispensable.