Ristretto della vita virtù e miracoli del venerabil servo di Dio fr[a] Martino Porres
Subtitle: terziario professo dell'ordine del glorioso patriarca S[an] Domenico
By: compilato dal molto reverendo padre maestro fra Domenico Ponsi del medesimo ordine
Publisher: Nella Stamperia di S[an] Tommasso d'Aquino
Published: 1791
Place of publication: Bologna MDCCXCI
Language: ita
Number of pages: 122
Subjects: Christian saints; Biography; Racially mixed people
Other titles: Ristretto della vita virtù e miracoli del venerabil servo di Dio fra Martino Porres.
Notes: Roman numeral date printed after place of publication on title page.

The earliest edition of this work traced by the Catalogo del Servizio Bibliotecario Nazionale was printed in Trevigi in 1733.

The imprimatur on p. [1], 2nd count, is dated April 13, 1778.

Martin de Porres is considered the first black saint of the Americas. He was born in Lima in 1579 as the illegitimate son of a Spanish nobleman, Don Juan de Porress, and Ana Velázquez, a freed slave from Panama. As black and mixed-race persons were barred from entry into religious orders in colonial Peru, Porres found his calling as a donado, or volunteer who performed menial tasks in the local Dominican monastery. Finally he was admitted as a servant boy at the age of 15, and eventually despite his race was promoted to almoner, in charge of distributing alms to the poor. He was a good friend of another Dominican saint of Peru, Rose of Lima. His feast day is November 3 and he was canonized in 1962 by Pope John XXIII.

Signatures: a-e¹² (c5 missigned c6; e4, e5, and e7 missigned e5, e7, and e8) (a1 blank, a2 verso blank) chi² (chi2 verso blank)

Engraved printer's ornament on title page.

Purchase; 2017; 18-344.