Politica de Dios, y Govierno de Christo, Sacada de la Sagrada Escritura, para acierto de Rey, y Reyno en sus Acciones. Por Don Francisco de Quevedo Villegas, Cavallero del Orden de Santiago, Senor de la Torre de Juan Abad. Madrid, Joseph Rodriguez de Escobar, 1729.
4to, (208 x 142mm), pp. [xvi], 333, [4] table of contents, text heavily browned in part, but externally wonderfully fresh in later eighteenth century English half calf over marbled boards, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label lettered in gilt, the Macclesfield copy with blind stamps, shelf marks and the South Library bookplate.
An attractive copy of a scarce edition of this major political essay by Quevedo, first published in 1626. This edition is published by the same Confraternity of St. John the Evangelist who also published an edition of his works in the same year.
‘The treatise attempts to establish the theoretical groundwork for a governmental system based on Christian ideals. The best form of government, according to Quevedo, is a monarchy, one whose authority is absolute because it issues from divine will. The king should govern using Christ as his supreme model. Much attention is paid to the qualities required of the king’s counselors, they being probably as important as the king himself. Quevedo rejects tyrannicide as the solution for an evil monarch, choosing instead to present the latter as a form of divine punishment which must be suffered in silence. The work contains few truly original ideas, its significance stemming principally from the mastery of its style as well as the great popularity it achieved’ (Bleiberg, Dictionary of the Literature of the Iberian Peninsula, II, p. 1336).
OCLC lists Columbia, DLC, Penn State and Dibam Biblioteca National de Chile.
Palau 243833.