Vida de la Venerable Madre Sor Beatriz Ana Ruiz, Mantelata Professa de la Orden de N. G. P. S. Agustin. Y Doctrinas, o Mistica Simbolico-Practica, que le revelò el Señor, como Farol preciso en estos tiempos, para entrar, y correr los caminos de la christiana obligacion, y devocion, sin tropezar en la ilusoria quietud de Molinistas, y falsos Alumbrados; con el bien regulado uso de sentidos, y potencias, humanado con amenissima sensibilizacion, que le hace perceptible; y util, y dulcemente practicable. Reflexionadas por el R. P. M. Fr. Thomas Perez, de la misma Orden, Maestro en Artes, Doctor en Sagrada Theologia en la Universidad de Valencia, y Regente de Estudios que fue en los Conventos de N. P. S. Agustin, Nuestra Señora del Socorro, y Colegio de San Fulgencio. Consagrase al Il[ustrisi]mo y R[everendisi]mo S[eño]r Don Andres Mayoral, y Carranza, Antes Obispo de Ceuta, dignissimo Arzobispo de Valencia, del Consejo de su Magestad, Señor de la Villa de Puzol, &c

Large 4to. pp. (36), 686, including engraved portrait. Bound in contemporary gilt-tooled calf with gilt title label on spine, all edges stained red. Worming to upper corner of the final 30 pp, mainly affecting index but with loss of a few letters. Trimmed a little closely on lower edge at the time of binding, resulting in partial loss of the imprint. Rare sole edition, and the first appearance in print, of the ‘writings’ of Beatriz Ana Ruiz (1666-1735), an illiterate, uncloistered mystic whose religious career began only in her later years. “When this impoverished washerwoman first claimed that her body was the site of a fierce struggle between God and the devil, her neighbors considered her to be simpleminded or mad. But Ruiz eventually won the admiration and support of local clerics.” (Weber, Approaches to Teaching Teresa of Ávila and the Spanish Mystics, p. 139). The engraved portrait of Ruiz depicts an aged nun in pious reflection before an altar; but the viewer’s eye is immediately drawn to the spectacle in the background, where Sor Beatriz is writhing on the ground, beaten by two stick-wielding demons. From her mouth issue the words of God to Satan in Job II.6: “Ecce in manu tua est Verum tamen Animam illius serva” [Behold, he is in your hand, but save his soul]. Ruiz earns an entry in ‘The Feminist Encyclopedia of Spanish Literature’ (M. Salgado, v. II, p. 527), which summarizes her unconventional life: “a member of the Tertiary [i.e. uncloistered] Order of St. Augustine, Beatriz Ana Ruiz… married Pedro Celdrán at age 14. Following his early death, she married a second husband, a jealous and abusive man who left her widowed by age 33, with four children to care for. She was a visionary who claimed to have been present in spirit at the Battle of Almansa, where she helped the forces of Philip V. Desperately poor, she led an exemplary life but was nonetheless vilified and persecuted by her fellow villagers, who accused her of carrying on an illicit affair with Miguel Pujalte, the mayor’s secretary. Pujalte helped her and recorded many pages of religious visions dictated to him by the illiterate Beatriz… Many of Beatriz’s doctrines and revelations became part of her biography, written in first draft by Pujalte and completed by Father Thomás Pérez.” Following her Vida, pages 275-668 transcribe her visions, along with her own allegorical or mystical interpretations of the same. “Beatriz’s texts consist of a series of doctrines or revelations, written to save souls, to correct vices, and to stimulate virtues. Her intelligence and her direct, simple, frequently elegant style have surprised critics, who have suggested that her writings were improved by Miguel Pujalte…” (Salgado). Throughout her Vida, we find a handful of Ruiz’s own poems, some also “compuestos en sus raptos”. Finally, at least one modern commentator points out that the popular cultus of Ruiz was co-opted by her male biographer to validate mystical experiences within Catholic orthodoxy, even by uneducated women, and, at the same time, to demonstrate the heresy of the ‘Molinists’ (L. Corteguerra, “The Making of a Visionary Woman: The Life of Beatriz Ana Ruiz, 1666-1735” in M. Vicente & L. Corteguerra, Women, Texts and Authority in the Early Modern Spanish World (2003), p. 172).