Doctrina Christiana | Page 2

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
Let us first examine the book as it appears before us. The title-page reads:
Doctrina Christiana, en lengua espa?ola ytagala, cor regida por los Religiosos de las ordenes Impressa con licencia, en S. gabriel. de la orden de. S. Domigo En Manila. 1593
The book, printed in Gothic letters and Tagalog [1] characters on paper made from the paper mulberry, now browned and brittle with age, consists of thirty-eight leaves, comprising a title-page as above, under a woodcut [2] of St. Dominic, with the verso originally blank, but in this copy bearing the contemporary manuscript inscription, Tassada en dos rreales, signed _Juan de Cuellar_; and seventy-four pages of text in Spanish, Tagalog transliterated into roman letters, and Tagalog in Tagalog characters. The size of the volume, which is unbound, is 9 1/8 by 7 inches, although individual leaves vary somewhat due to chipping. Some of the leaves have become separated from their complements, but enough remain in the original stitching to indicate that the book was originally made up in four gatherings, the first of twelve leaves, the second of ten, the third of ten, and the fourth of six. Although the book is of the size called quarto, the method of printing must have been page by page, so it is doubtful that each sheet was folded twice in the usual quarto manner, but more probable that it was printed four pages to a sheet of paper approximately 9 1/8 by 14 inches, which was folded once.
The volume is printed throughout by the xylographic method, that is to say, each page of text is printed from one wood-block which was carved by hand. Along the inner margins of some pages are vertical lines which were made by the inked edge of the block, and the grain of the wood has caused striations to appear in the printed portions throughout. The unevenness of the impression indicates that the pages were printed in some primitive manner without the help of a conventional press.
The paper, which is one of the distinctive features of most old Oriental books, has been discussed at length by Pardo de Tavera in his study of early Philippine printing, and we can do no better than translate the relevant passage in full:
"I have said before that the material composition of our books is inferior. The imprints before 1830 were made on a paper called by some rice paper, by others silk paper, and by still others China paper, according to their taste. It is detestable, brittle, without consistency or resistance, and was called rice paper because it was supposed to be made from that grain. It was the only kind then used in the Philippines, not only for printing, but for all manner of writing, letters, etc., and it is even recorded that in 1874 when tobacco was a state monopoly, cigarettes were made with this paper, and that the Indians and Chinese preferred it (and perhaps they still do) to rag paper or other kinds, because of the horrible taste it gives the tobacco.
"In China they commonly made paper of bamboo, but more principally from cotton and a plant which travellers have cited only by its common name, which they