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Page 1
DOCTRINA CHRISTIANA
The first book printed in the Philippines has been the object of a hunt
which has extended from Manila to Berlin, and from Italy to Chile,
for four hundred and fifty years. The patient research of scholars,
the scraps of evidence found in books and archives, the amazingly
accurate hypotheses of bibliographers who have sifted the material
so painstakingly gathered together, combine to make its history a
bookish detective story par excellence.
It is easy when a prisoner has been arrested and brought to the dock to
give details of his complexion, height, characteristics and identifying
marks, to fingerprint him and to photograph him, but how inadequate
was the description before his capture, how frequently did false scents
draw the pursuer off the right track! It is with this in mind that we
examine the subject of this investigation, remembering that it has not
been done before in detail. And, to complete the case, the book has
been photographed in its entirety and its facsimile herewith published.
In studying the Doctrina Christiana of 1593 there are four general
problems which we shall discuss. First, we shall give a physical
description of the book. Secondly, we shall trace chronologically the
bibliographical history of the Doctrina, that is, we shall record the
available evidence which shows that it was the first book printed in
the Philippines, and weigh the testimonies which state or imply to
the contrary. Thirdly, we shall try to establish the authorship of
the text, and lastly, we shall discuss the actual printing.
It hardly needs be told why so few of the incunabula of the Philippines
have survived. The paper on which they were printed was one of the most
destructible papers ever used in book production. The native worms and
insects thrived on it, and the heat and dampness took their slower but
equally certain toll. Add to these enemies the acts of providence of
which the Philippines have received more than their share--earthquake,
fire and flood--and the man-made devastations of war, combined with the
fact that there was no systematic attempt made in the Philippines to
preserve in archives and libraries the records of the past, and it
can well be understood why a scant handful of cradle-books have been
preserved. The two fires of 1603 alone, which burned the Dominican
convent in Manila to the ground and consumed the whole of Binondo just
outside the walls, must have played untold havoc upon the records of
the early missionaries. Perhaps the only copies of early Philippine
books which exist today, unchronided and forgotten, are those which
were sent to Europe in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, and may
now be lying uncatalogued in some library there.
One copy of this Doctrina was sent to Philip�II by the Governor of
the Philippines in 1593; and in 1785 a Jesuit philologist, Hervas y
Panduro, printed Tagalog texts from a then extant copy. Yet, since
that time no example is recorded as having been seen by bibliographer
or historian. The provenance of the present one is but imperfectly
known. In the spring of 1946 William H. Schab, a New York dealer,
was in Paris, and heard through a friend of the existence of a 1593
Manila book. He expressed such incredulity at this information that his
friend, feeling his integrity impugned, telephoned the owner then and
there, and confirmed the unbelievable "1593." Delighted and enthused,
Schab arranged to meet him, found that he was a Paris bookseller and
collector who specialized in Pacific imprints and was fully aware of
the importance of the volume, and induced him to sell the precious
Doctrina. He brought it back with him to the United States and offered
it to Lessing J. Rosenwald, who promptly purchased it and presented it
to the Library of Congress. Where the book had been before it reached
Paris we do not know. Perhaps it is the very copy sent to Philip�II,
perhaps the copy from which Hervas got his text. Indeed, it may
have been churned to the surface by the late Civil War in Spain,
and sent from there to France. In the course of years from similar
sources may come other books to throw more light upon the only too
poorly documented history of the establishment of printing in the
Philippine Islands.
THE PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION
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