Rare second, enlarged edition of Michel Angelo Lapi s Italian translation, first published 1655, of this scarce account of the life of Saint Toribio Alfonso of Mogrovejo (1538-1606), Archbishop of Lima from 1579, with details of his beatification and canonisation, the original Spanish ed. was published Lima 1653. From a small village in Cantabria in Spain, the unheralded Toribio received a surprise appointment as Grand Inquisitor by Philip II, after which he was elected to the Archbishopric of Lima. There he supposedly confirmed half a million people, including the Peruvian Saints Martin de Porres and Rose of Lima, a Dominican nun from a noble Spanish family, who was the first person born in the Americas to be canonised.. The book relates Toribio s incredible journeys on foot around the more inaccessible parts of Peru, for which he was famous, including precipitous nocturnal journeys across mountainous terrain with his native guides. There are several chapters describing Toribio s saintly virtues and the miracles he performed before and after his death. These include protecting the town of Mayobamba from storms and bad air, with which it was particularly afflicted, [etc.]. The book begins with the decree of Toribio s own canonisation in 1635 by Pope Urban VIII, and at the end are a number of prayers and pleas (instantia) invoking Toribio, along with several letters from clergy in favour of his beatification and canonisation, as well as texts of documents relating to the process.
