RARE DEVOTION FOR THE FEAST OF THE ASSUMPTION
‘PIETRO da VICOVARO’, i.e. Giuseppe CORTESE.
Apparecchio per accompagnare Maria Santissima nella sua gloriosa assunzione in Cielo, tributo d’ossequio.
Rome, Komarek, 1735.
12mo, pp. [xxiv], ‘123’ (recte 223), [5, blank except for a woodcut vignette of Mary Queen of Heaven to recto of penultimate leaf]; with half-title, full-page engraved illustration of the Assumption of Mary by Carlo Grandi to a3v, woodcut initial and tailpieces, typographic head-piece; short tear to outer margin of title, not touching text, occasional very light foxing, minute crease to the upper outer corner of the last couple of leaves; a very good copy in contemporary vellum, flat spine lettered in ink; a little soiling and rubbing to the extremities; inscription ’ex dono autoris P[rim]a Augusti 1735 ora vigesima secunda’ to the front pastedown; pencil marginal drawing to p. 5 framing the upper half of the page; modern inscription recording the gift of this book from Jori Schmid to Herr Pfarrer von Grebel for his birthday, January 1962, to half-title.
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Apparecchio per accompagnare Maria Santissima nella sua gloriosa assunzione in Cielo, tributo d’ossequio.
Very rare devotional work dedicated to the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, a novena written by Pietro da Vicovaro.
Pietro da Vicovaro (OFM, birth name Giuseppe Cortese, 1676–1752) was a well-known author of devotional works mainly for the use of Franciscan communities. The Apparecchio guides the reader on a nine-day journey towards the Feast of the Assumption, celebrated in mid-August. Each day, the practice begins with a brief theological presentation, followed by a ‘meditatio’ and a prayer; after that, there comes a suggestion for specific acts of devotion, followed by a prescribed ‘exercise of virtue’ focusing on acts that foster obedience, gratitude, charity, and other virtues, with examples. A second edition was published in 1749, apparently identical, and equally rare. It may have been prompted by the thought of Pope Benedict XIV, who while not establishing the Assumption as a dogma, declare it a ‘probable opinion which it is impious to deny’. The assumption became a Catholic dogma in 1950.
The date of the inscription declaring this copy a gift from the author, 1 August 1735, speaks of the author’s intention of presenting this book as a prompt and instrument for the actual devotion of the Novena of the Assumption, having been delivered well in time for a nine-day commitment ahead of the Feast itself, celebrated on the fifteenth of August.
We find only one copy outside Italy, at the University of Aberdeen. There appear to be two copies of the second edition in the US: at Saint Bonaventure and at Dayton.
