Officio de la Semana Santa Segun el Missal y Breuiario Romanos, Que se pulicaron por mandado de Su Santidad Pro V. y se reconocieron por comission de Su Santida Clemente VIII y Vrbano VIII. by Philip IV - 1666

Officio de la Semana Santa Segun el Missal y Breuiario Romanos, Que se pulicaron por mandado de Su Santidad Pro V. y se reconocieron por comission de Su Santida Clemente VIII y Vrbano VIII. En Amberes, En La Emprenta Plantiniana De Balthasar Moreto, M. DC. LXVI. (1666) []2, A-I8, K-T8, V-Z8, Aa-Ii8, Kk-Ss8, []2. 19 letter engravings, 5 full page engravings of Christ, angels and persecutors. Binding is 19th century rippled goat with gold title and blind stamped cross on front and back boards. Interior colored paper trimmed with gold blind stamped edging. Gold leaf edges on pages in very good condition. Overall an exceptionally bright and clean red and black printed missal. First and only edition after the death of Philip IV of Spain. PHILIP IV. (1605-1665), king of Spain, eldest son of Philip III and his wife Margaret, sister of the emperor Ferdinand II., was born at Valladolid on the 8th of April 1605. His reign, after a few passing years of barren successes, was a long story of politi¬cal and military decay and disaster. The king has been held responsible for the fall of Spain, which was, however, due in the main to internal causes beyond the con¬trol of the most despotic ruler, however capable he had been. Philip certainly pos¬sessed more energy, both mental and physical, than his father. There is still in exis¬tence a translation of Guicciardini which he wrote with his own hand in order to qualify himself for government by acquiring knowledge of political history. He was a fine horseman and keen hunter. His artistic taste was shown by his patronage of Velasquez and his love of letters by his favor to Lope de Vega, Calderon, and other dramatists. He is even credited, on fairly probable testimony, with a share at least in the composition of several comedies. His good intentions were of no avail to his government. Coming to the throne at the age of sixteen, he did the wisest thing he could by allowing himself to be guided by the most capable man he could find. He thought it his duty to support the German Habsburgs and the cause of the Roman Catholic Church against the Protestants, to assert his sovereignty over Holland, and to extend the dominions of his house. The utter exhaustion of his people in the course of a hope¬less struggle with Holland, France and England was seen by him with sympathy, but he considered it an unavoidable misfortune and not the result of his own errors, since he could not be expected to renounce his rights or to desert the cause of God and the Church. In public he maintained a bearing of rigid solemnity, and was seen to laugh only three times in the course of his life. But in private he indulged in horseplay and very coarse immorality. His court was grossly vicious. The early death of his eldest son, Baltasar Carlos, was unquestionably due to debauchery encouraged by the gentlemen entrusted by the king with his education. The lesson shocked the king, but its effect soon wore off. Philip IV died broken-hearted in September 1665, expressing the hope that his surviving son, Carlos, would be more fortunate than himself.