[Lisbon] | First edition of this example of early Portuguese printing

[Lisbon]

Constitiuciones do Arcebispado de Lixboa. [Colophon:] Lisbon: Germão Galbardes Frances, 1537

Folio (240 x 180 mm). Title with woodcut arms of Cardinal-Infante Dom Alfonso, initials of varying sizes, gothic type; small repairs to contemporary signatures, title page and following 8 leaves cropped (✠2–✠9) affecting title and outer margins, H4 incorrectly signed as G4, slight foxing throughout, light pencil pagination in the upper right corner of the leaves. Late twentieth-century red morocco with gilt triple-ruled borders, spine in six compartments with raised bands, inner dentelles gilt, edges gilt. 

First edition of this example of early Portuguese printing.

Under the direction of the Archbishop, Cardinal-Infante Afonso, the Constituiçoens do Arcebispado de Lixboa were established at a synod in 1536. Key components of the Constituiçoens were the establishment of the use of the Roman Rite and the institution of registries of baptisms, a decree later echoed in the Council of Trent. 

French printer and successor to Valemtim Fernandes, Germão Galhardo installed a printing press in the Monastery of Santa Cruz in 1530–31, where the first six books printed at Coimbra were printed under his direction.

REFERENCES

Anselmo 613; King Manuel 35; Lisbon, Biblioteca Nacional, Catálogo dos impressos de tipografia portuguesa do século XVI, 418; Barbosa Machado IV, 1; Innocêncio II, 104.; Pinto de Mattos, pp. 177-9: British Museum, Pre-1601 Portuguese STC, p. 11.; Sir Gubian 227; Nepomuceno 534; Palha 328, 332; not in Adams, which lists only one earlier Lisbon imprint, and nothing by this printer; not in Lisbon, Academia das Ciências, Livros quinhentistas portugueses