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Doctrina Christiana
The First Book Printed in the Philippines.
Manila, 1593. A Facsimile of the Copy in
the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection.
Library of Congress, Washington.
With an Introductory Essay
By
Edwin Wolf 2nd
Acknowledgements
I want here to express my thanks and appreciation to Mr. Lessing J. Rosenwald, through whose kindness this unique Doctrinawas presented to the Library of Congress and with whom the idea of this publication originated. His interest and enthusiasmmade possible my work, and his friendly advice and encouragement have been both valuable and heart-warming.
I also wish to thank others who have given me great assistance. They are Dr. A.S.W. Rosenbach to whom I continually turnedfor advice, Dr. Lawrence C. Wroth of the John Carter Brown Library and Dr. Leslie W. Dunlap of the Library of Congress whovery kindly read over my manuscript and gave me the benefit of their suggestions and criticisms, Mr. David C. Mearns and MissElsie Rackstraw of the Library of Congress and Mrs. Ruth Lapham Butler of the Ayer Collection of the Newberry Library whoso freely and generously made available to me the great collections of works on the Philippines in their libraries, Dr. JohnH. Powell of the Free Library of Philadelphia who helped me find reference books of the utmost importance, and the many librarianswho courteously answered written queries about early Philippine material. Edwin Wolf 2nd.
Doctrina Christiana
The first book printed in the Philippines has been the object of a hunt which has extended from Manila to Berlin, and fromItaly to Chile, for four hundred and fifty years. The patient research of scholars, the scraps of evidence found in booksand 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, characteristicsand 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 subjectof this investigation, remembering that it has not been done before in detail. And, to complete the case, the book has beenphotographed 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 aphysical description of the book. Secondly, we shall trace chronologically the bibliographical history of the Doctrina, thatis, we shall record the available evidence which shows that it was the first book printed in the Philippines, and weigh thetestimonies which state or imply to the contrary. Thirdly, we shall try to establish the authorship of the text, an