[JESUIT MISSIONARY SAINTS – A REGIONAL VARIATION OF A MIRACULOUS PRAYER RECEIVED IN A VISION] Trattenimenti spirituali sopra alcune virtù di San Francesco Saverio, apostolo delle Indie, proposti da Gio. Battista Cerido, Sacerdote Catanese, a celebrare con frutto la Novena detta comunemente di Marzo o li dieci venerdi in onore del medesimo santo [Spiritual tracts on certain virtues of Saint Francis Xavier, Apostle of the Indies, proposed by Gio. Battista Cerido, a Priest of Catania, to celebrate with fruit the Novena commonly called March Novena or the ten Fridays in honor of the same saint].
Viterbo: Nella Stamperia di Giuseppe Poggiarelli, 1773. Small octavo (15 × 9.8 cm). Contemporary full vellum over boards; manuscript title to head of spine; [4], 258 pp. Engraved frontis portrait of the saint; numerous vignettes throughout, including one depicting the Mother of God on p. 26. Trace of paper label to front pastedown; else very good. Item #54477
Scarce work, with no copies located outside Italy, describing the manner of preparing for and practicing the Novena – an established sequence of prayers repeated for nine successive days – dedicated to the Catholic missionary and saint, a Spaniard co-founder of the Jesuit Order, as well as the practice of "ten Fridays" devoted to St. Xavier. The novena typically begins on March 4 and ends on March 12, the day on which the saint was canonized in 1622 by Pope Gregory XV. Authored by an unknown priest from Catania, Sicily, the work also contains ten spiritual meditations, corresponding to the practice of honoring St. Xavier on ten consecutive Fridays, which describe his virtues, with titles such as "Faith in God," "Mortification or bodily penitence," and "Patience." The introduction describes the accepted origin of the "novena of grace": in 1633, another Jesuit missionary active in Asia, Marcello Mastrilli (1603–1637), was injured and fell unconscious while at Naples. St. Xavier appeared to him in a vision, imploring Mastrilli to renew his vow to lead a Jesuit mission to Japan, while also curing him of his injuries and imparting to him the essential features of the novena. Mastrilli widely publicized the miracle and the prayer before departing for Japan, where he was almost immediately executed and died a martyr.
While there appear to have been multiple English-language editions of the novena (The manner of performing the novena, 1690 and later editions), for example, and Mastrilli's novena had also spread throughout Italy, the prayers in this edition differ entirely from its canonical version. The author's introduction suggests that he has found a different version of the novena, resulting in abundant graces, "in Viterbo, where I am writing, not having been here before, not even remotely by way of the news." The book thus appears to record a local variant of the prayer, along with Cerido's own reflections, which are also partly based on a a 1728 text about the novena printed at Palermo, which we cannot trace. Of further interest is the appendix, also divided into ten small chapters, describing the miraculous graces performed by St. Francis Xavier as a result of the Novena, with special reference to Italian locales including the towns of Messina and Valenza.
The frontis portrait is not attributed; it depicts the bearded saint with his pilgrim's staff and the hands opening the cape to reveal his shirt, in reference to his flaming heart, one of his main attributes.
As of February 2025, not recorded in OCLC.
Price: €600.00