Rare and valuable books

OVER THE YEARS, books have taken over my living space. My bookshelves are full, so are tabletops, chairs, and even the floor. Despite a drastic weeding of the collection a few years ago and placing books in my office, I still share half of my bed with books. Books will soon run me out of the house.

There is no end since bookstores are my weakness, particularly the bargain bins that challenge my budget and self-control. At the Powerbooks store in the Greenbelt mall the other day I wondered how and why the store orders books that will end up on sale. For example, I was tempted to acquire a boring academic book on Pangasinan drama and balance it with a guidebook on how to keep tarantulas. The only thing that kept me from producing my credit card was not considerations of space at home but rather the fact that I don't read Pangalatok and I don't know where I can buy a live tarantula in Manila.

One can never tell the kind of books people buy. My sister's godfather used to brag about the seven-volume "Owners' Guide to the Boeing 747" in his home library, showing us one volume that taught you how to fly a 747 and a separate volume on troubleshooting a 747. These were totally useless books, but they had real snob value because one could not get them without buying or owning a 747. God only knows from which second-hand shop these books came.

Two weeks ago, in Christie's London was an auction on "Exploration and Travel: Asia" that surprisingly had a significant number of Filipiniana lots on offer, mostly books and some maps. The price estimates seemed reasonable except that the peso is so low when converted into dollar or euro. Worse, one had to add a premium to the hammer price and, of course, factor in the cost of a trip to London to bid and bring the loot home.

I sent the auction catalogue to Dr. Leovino Garcia, dean of the Ateneo School of the Humanities, who also nurtures a passion for old maps. His advice was that I go for two books by Jesuit authors Francisco Colin and Pedro Murillo Velarde. The catalogue entries were very impressive, the book title alone kilometric: "Labor evangelica, ministerios apostolicos de los obreros de la Compania de Jesus, fundacion y progresos de su provincial en las Islas Filipinas. Parte primera sacada de los manuscriptos del Padre Chirino, el primero de la compania que passo de los Reynos de Espa¤a a estas islas. Madrid: Joseph Fernandez Buendia, 1663."

The book is valuable not only for its maps and illustrations but the contents as well. Christie's described it thus: "A superb copy of the first edition of the best seventeenth century work on the Philippines and the first book on the archipelago to be of scientific value for its survey of flora, fauna, geography and languages. It is partly based on the unpublished manuscript of Pedro Chirino of the Philippines, 1585-1618, by Colin a member of the Jesuit mission at Zamboanga. In five books, of which the fifth is a listing of Jesuit colleges, churches and residences throughout the Philippines and including Ternate, in Indonesia and Borneo. The work also contains biographies of Christian Japanese noblemen who found refuge in Manila from the persecutions in Japan. The Segunda Parte by Pedro Murillo Velarde was not published until 1749 in Manila, and updated the history of the province from 1616-1716."

I haven't checked if the lot was sold and at what price, but the pre-auction estimate was $5,500-$9,100. Gosh, I would have to pawn my mother for this book, and one still had to buy the companion volume with its wonderful map of the Philippines by Nicolas Bagay at an estimated $7,300-$11,000. This book is: "Historia de la Provincia de Philipinas de la Compania de Jesus Segunda Parte, que comprehende los progresos de esta provincia desde el ano de 1616 el de 1716. Manila: en la imprenta de la Compania de Jesus, 1749."

For the map alone, one would have to pay the same price in Manila today. And here was a copy of the entire book complete with the frontispiece by Laureano Atlas. If I had the money, I would get both books, but if I could only have one it would be the Murillo Velarde.

Where did these books come from? If they were from one single library or collection, who was interested enough in the Philippines to keep these works? Are there other Filipiniana materials that came with the books but were not placed on auction? The owner knew his Filipiniana because there even is a 1736 Kapampangan grammar and an early 19th-century Cebuano grammar, among other works offered that were only found in libraries.

Yet for a Filipino bibliophile, the most important lot was not in the Philippine section but listed under Pacific Voyages-the one by Transylvanus Maximilianus, which was described as follows: "Second Rome edition of the first voyage around the world by Ferdinand Magellan, 1519-1522. First published in Rome by Calvi in November 1523 on 19 leaves of 30 lines. Maximilianus was the Secretary of Carlos V, for whom Magellan sailed, and a relation of Magellan's shipmate and friend, Christopher Haro. Maximilianus was a pupil of Peter Martyr when Magellan's surviving ship Victoria returned to Spain in September 1522, and Maximilianus was instructed to interview the survivors..."
Estimated price for this book printed in 1524 was set at $55,000-$73,000.

Books were collateral damage in the Battle for Manila in 1945, so we have to look westward and pay good money to recover part of our heritage.

Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.