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Terrible executions by the Inquisition. With the coat of arms of Frédéric de Marselaer

DELLON, Charles.
Aanmerkelijk historisch-verhaal van de inquisitie der Portugeesen in Goa, en andere gewesten van Oost-Indiën. Uyt het Frans vertaalt.

With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text.

With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text.

With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text.

With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text.

With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text.



Middelburg, Gillis Horthemels the Younger, 1688. 12mo. Contemporary overlapping vellum with two different gilt coat-of-arms of Frédéric de Marselaer on the front, resp. back cover. With engraved title vignette, 3 folding and 3 full-page engraved plates and a half-page plate at the beginning of the text. (12), 282, (17) pp.

Rare first edition of the Dutch translation of this famous account on the Portuguese Inquisition at Goa, by the French physician and traveller Charles Dellon (1649 - ca. 1709), sometimes referred to as Gabriel Dellon. Inspired by reading many travel accounts, Dellon left France in 1668. He travelled extensively along the coast of Malabar, and was practising as a physician in Damao, a Portuguese colony north of Bombay. In 1674 he was arrested by the Inquisition and sent to Goa to stand trial. The apparent reasons for his imprisonment by order of the Inquisition of Goa were the ill-conceived jealousy of the Governor of Daman, Manoel Furtado de Mendonça, and that of a priest, secretary of the Holy Office, who harbored a secret passion for the same lady who lived in a house in front of the priest's lodgings. After two years of torture, the Tribunal confiscated his property and condemned Dellon to five years on the galleys. Put upon a ship bound for Lisbon, Dellon in Lisbon reopened and pleaded his case before the Grand Tribunal. And with success: the tribunal granted him his freedom after intervention of Bossuet and in 1677 he returned to France to become physician for the Prince of Conti.
Ten years later, in 1687, he first published the account of his expieriences with the Inquisition, anonymously, at Leiden with the printer Daniel Gaasbeek: Relation de l'inquisition de Goa. It was republished at Paris by Daniel Hortemels (= Holland)  in 1688, also anonymously. The Dutch translation first appeared also in 1688 (this copy) with Gilis Hortemels II in Middelburg. This edition was republished with a new title in Amsterdam by Mortier in 1697: Historie der inquisitie tot Goa. German and English translations appeared also in 1688. The work was put on the Index in 1690, but it was  republished manty times until far into the eighteenth and even the beginning of the nineteenth centuries; a modern annotated edition by Charles Amiel and Anna Lima appeared in Paris in 1997.
Perhaps because of its Catholic fervor, the Portuguese Inquisition in Goa, became the most severe and cruel of all the Portuguese territories. The inquisitors in Goa were the most fanatic and violent of the Portuguese Catholic Church. Many voyagers have painted with great energy the really horrible torments which the inquisition of Goa inflicted on its prisoners, but Charles Dellon's account is without contradiction the most minute, and the most moderate and impartially report in all respects (Caillet), although he would have had reasons enough to do otherwise. The word 'Auto da fé' reverberated throughout Goa, reminiscent of the furies of Hell. From 8 April 1666, for instance, until the end of 1679 - during which period Dellon was tried - there were eight autos da fé, in which 1208 victims were sentenced.

The gilt coat of arms on both covers of our copy are of the self-confident book collector Frédéric de Marselaer (1584 - 1670), a well-known magistrate in Brussels where he was burgomaster for four terms and councillor of the province of Brabant: "La personalité la plus spectaculaire du monde bruxellois dans la première moitié du 17e siècle".
Fair copy with the engraved book-plate of 'Le comte D. Boutourlin'.- (Outer top margins of the first 100 pp. mouse eaten, not affecting the text; 2 plates repaired and strengthened).
Cf. Scheepers II, 1101; Caillet 2954; Barbier 4, 210; Fesch 466; Van der Vekene 275; for De Marselaer: Bibl. Belgica IV, p. 208-211; Armoriael belge III (1930), p. 816-18.

Related Subjects: 17th Century  Bindings  India  Inquisition  Portugal  Provenance 

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