Beschreibung:

Lorenzo Costanza, Storia della Chiesa DIngilterra, an account of the origins and ills of the English Protestant Church, in Italian, manuscript on paper [Italy (most probably Albiano), dated 1773] 39 leaves (plus 2 original endleaves), complete, single column of 27 lines in a good italic hand, rubrics in larger version of same script, frontispiece in simple capitals, some apparently authorial corrections in main hand (see p. 13 of first text), modern paper bookplate of Luciano Caruso his 199, small spots and stains, else in excellent condition, 265 by 175mm.; contemporary brown leather over thin pasteboards, gilt-tooled at spine with repeating flowers, a few small holes and stains, front board bowed at corners, overall fair condition This anti-Protestant account declares itself to be the work of Lorenzo Costanza, prevost of the church in Albiano, Trento. It covers the subject comprehensively, opening with an account of the medieval English Church, its ruin under Henry VIII and the fact that he was initially a Catholic but left the faith to repudiate his wife for the scarlet woman, Anne Boleyn. The papal condemnation of this act and Henrys excommunication follows, as well as accounts of his sacrilege, cruelty, and polygamous marriage, before the text proceeds to short biographies of his heretical successors down to Charles II in England as well as James III and then Mary Stuart in Scotland. Direct assaults on Protestantism complete the text, before the authors apparent signature and an index. To this the main hand has appended an Italian translation of the letter of Mary Stuart to Pope Sixtus V.