Manuscript compilation of foundational Jesuit documents.

[Manuscript] / [Society of Jesus]. [Manuscript collection of early Jesuit documents]. S.l. [Italy]: s.n., s.a. [likely late 17th or early 18th century]. 12mo [15.4 x 9.6 cm], [4] ff. blanks [74] ff., [4] ff. blanks. Bound in contemporary vellum, traces of manuscript title and a shelfmark label on spine, marbled pastedowns, blue sprinkled edges. Minor edge wear and minor staining. Spotting in some gatherings, marginal burn hole to f. 66, neatly written and legible throughout.
 
 
Manuscript compilation—likely of Italian origin and dating from the late 17th or early 18th century—of some 38 foundational and early Jesuit documents in Latin, Italian and Spanish. These documents date from 1534 to 1577. 
 
A terminus post quem is provided by 3 sonnets at the close of the volume: Francis Xavier’s Spanish sonnet “On the Crucifix,” known as “No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte,” is followed by two Italian translations/versions by Sforza Pallavicino (1607-67) and Rutilio Xirotta, Principe di Montevago (1622-66; the Agrigento region of Sicily). Sforza Pallavicino’s version appeared in 1663. A note at the end on the volume claims that Xirotta’s is better (“Questa 2.a versione è miglior della p[rim]a”; on these sonnets, see Conradi, esp. pp. 50-51).
 
I have not checked each document in the volume against the Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu series (MHSI), but some include variant readings are not found in the apparatus criticus, e.g. Ignatius of Lyola’s 1550 letter to Bartolomaea Spadafora, Abbess of Sta. Maria de Alto in Messina (a note to this entry says that the document was discovered in that convent in 1608 “E ritrovata alli 14 di febraio 1608 nel sud.o monastero”).
 
Documents are signed by Ignatius of Loyola, Francis Xavier, Petrus Faver, Diego Laynez, Simão Rodrigues, and other founders of the Society. 
 
The volume gives no clear indication of the identity of its compiler, but it seems to have been transcribed by one person over time from books, manuscripts and other primary documents. The compiler heads some entries with information about the sources from which the excerpts come, i.e., “ex libro manuscriptus” and “copia di un scritto originale di mano del…,” and in a crossed-out passage he remarks that this cancellation is present in his exemplar (“Sunt hae lineae in ipso originali”). The script is Italian, and the inclusion of Sicilian documents perhaps points to that region.
 
The volume would reward further study.
 
 
*Monumenta Historica Societatis Iesu; Gabriel María Verd Conradi, “Historia de la atribución a San Francisco Javier del soneto ‘No me mueve, mi Dios, para quererte’,” Archivo Teológico Granadino, vol. 78 (2015), pp. 27-104 (this volume is not in Conradi’s census).