The man
Carlos Alberto Pueyrredon was born in Buenos Aires on July 18, 1887. His parents were Julio Pueyrredon Carneiro Fontoura and Victoria Lynch García. He completed his primary and secondary studies at an English school and at the Nacional Norte in Buenos Aires. He entered the Faculty of Law, practiced in his father's firm as a solicitor, in 1910 he obtained the title of lawyer and then the Doctor of Jurisprudence. He stood out in private activity as a businessman: in the countryside, banking, and the insurance industry. He joined the Radical Civic Union at the age of 19, then joined the ranks of anti-personalism and later conservatism. Nephew of Honorio Pueyrredón, a prominent radical politician married to a sister of Carlos Saavedra Lamas, in 1920 President Marcelo T. de Alvear appointed him as a delegate to the League of Nations. In 1932 he was elected National Representative for the National Democratic Party. For four years he carried out intense legislative activity in Congress; Extremely concise, he was characterized by avoiding theoretical or trivial controversies. In his four years in office he founded or signed one hundred and twenty-eight projects, out of thirty enacted laws, eight of his direct initiatives and the remaining twenty-two of friendly legislators and Ministers of the Executive Branch, which he promoted in the Chamber until obtaining final sanction. He was an extraordinary envoy of the Special Mission to Italy in 1933.
During the presidency of Ramón S. Castillo he held the position of Municipal Mayor of Buenos Aires between December 6, 1940 and June 11, 1943: he cleaned up the finances, carried out important social work, inaugurated the Fernández Hospital and promoted the works del Argerich, acquired the residence of the Noel brothers on Suipacha Street and made it a Museum in which he housed the collections gathered by Isaac Fernández Blanco, bought the old Saavedra Zelaya farm on General Paz Avenue, and with the help of his wife, in two months the house was arranged, decorated and inaugurated as the Brigadier General Cornelio de Saavedra Historical Museum. And when he was asked the reason for the success of his management, he responded: "Very easy... don't steal, don't let people steal, and don't do robberies." The unnecessary and clumsy Revolution of 1943 cut short that work. When the new authorities asked him to continue as head of the Municipality, Pueyrredon refused to serve an illegal and authoritarian government that emerged from force. A small square in the Palermo neighborhood is named after him.
Portrait of Carlos Alberto Pueyrredon.
He formed his home in 1915, when he married Silvia María Dolores Saavedra Lamas. He died in Buenos Aires on July 16, 1962. He was succeeded by his widow, who died in 1975, and his children Silvia P. de Elizalde (1916-1987), Julio Alberto (1918-2007), Victoria (1920 -2008) and Inés P. de Amadeo.
The historian
A noted publicist, his main bibliography includes 144 titles, including books, pamphlets, articles and various works [1], highlighting among them those dedicated to the precursors of independence, in particular to the life of the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda and the influence of his preaching in the Río de la Plata, the English invasions, the May Revolution, the San Martín campaigns, the history of diplomatic relations and the activity of Juan Martín de Pueyrredón in all those historical moments. But, in my opinion, his best book is the one that in 1952 he dedicated to the crucial year of 1810 [2].
In 1934 he was appointed a full member of the Board of American History and Numismatics. At the end of 1959 he was elected president of that corporation, now converted into the National Academy of History, and in October 1960 he presided over the Third International Congress of American History, attended by more than three hundred delegates from Europe and our continent. He also belonged to the Sanmartiniano National Institute, the Argentine History Society, the Argentine Institute of Genealogical Sciences, the Buenos Aires Institute of Numismatics and Antiquities. And he was a Corresponding Academician of the Royal Academy of History of Spain and the National Academies of History of Venezuela, Ecuador, Chilean History, the Historical Institutes of Peru and the Historical and Geographic Institutes of Uruguay and other entities.
The bibliophile
A devoted admirer of the beauty of the book, both in its form (printing, paper, binding [3]) and in its quality: material, author's authority, guarantee of good production, intrinsic value of the work [4]. To obtain the most valuable pieces for his collection he corresponded with more than one hundred booksellers around the world. Shortly before the Second World War it was learned in Buenos Aires that an Argentine collector (probably Pueyrredon) acquired a copy of Don Quixote in London for the sum of 15,000 Argentine pesos [5].
His link with the materiality of the book. An exhibition of special bindings with a text he authored.
And since there are no bibliophiles without booksellers and printers, Pueyrredon knew them all and saw them parade in 1943 at the Book Fair held in Buenos Aires during his municipal administration.
He was one of the outstanding members of the Society of Argentine Bibliophiles, and if historical studies were his dominant concern, he applied the bibliophile criterion to his own printed work, as demonstrated by the following colophon of one of his books: "The Campaign of the Andes / by / Doctor Carlos A. Pueyrredon / was finished printing / in the workshops / of the / S. A. Jacobo Peuser, Ltda. / Buenos Aires / Argentine Republic. / In the first fortnight of the month of February of one thousand nine hundred and forty-one two. / Garamond and Bodoni characters were used to compose the text, / being printed on letterpress printing presses. The autograph letters and the four-color and black sheets were executed in offset. One thousand five hundred and ten copies of this work have been / thrown away, of which ten, out of commerce, on creamed laid paper, made of pure thread, weighing one hundred and twenty-five grams, manufactured by Wiggins Teape and Alex Pirie, marked with ten first letters / of the alphabet; the first five were reserved for the author and the remaining - / for the editors. Six hundred on Evensyde paper of one hundred and twenty-four / grams, marked I to DC. and nine hundred that constitute the original / original edition, on Evensyde paper of one hundred and five grams, / numbered from l to 900» [6].
The collection
In his house at Avenida Las Heras 2525 (demolished in 1987), Pueyrredón assembled a library of 10,000 volumes, divided into sections dedicated to American history (which included books by travelers who were in Argentina), incunabula, romances of Chivalry, works of Cervantes, and a valuable documentary archive.
The bound volumes had their ex libris attached: 87 x 67 mm., within a frame of lines in the form of rubrics it reproduces an oil painting with his portrait, it bears the inscription Ex Libris, and below the name of its owner: Carlos To Pueyrredon. The aforementioned portrait shows him in his office, seated, and copies of Don Quixote on a table.
In 1942 Pueyrredon provided the remembered magazine Saber Vivir with a description of his library, which was published illustrated with numerous photographic views [7] and in 1948 the well-known Spanish Cervantist Don Juan Sedó, upon joining the Academy of Fine Arts of Barcelona, briefly exhibited the most valuable elements of that collection [8].
Incunabula
Sedó refers, admiringly, regarding the bibliographic material collected by Pueyrredon: "His library - apart from the Cervantes - also brings together extremely rare copies - forty incunabula, among them two copies in Spanish of the Nuremberg Chronicle, the five books of Seneca and the couplets of Juan de Mena. Incunabulum (from the Latin incunabulum: cradle or beginning), is a qualification applicable to any book printed between 1450 (date of invention of the printing press) until 1500 or 1520. Sedó refers to The Five Books of Lucio Anneo Séneca, translation by Alonso de Cartagena, printed in Seville by Meinardo Ungut and Estanislao Polono, in 1491; to The Three Hundred by Juan de Mena (Seville, 1496), and to the famous Nuremberg Chronicles (Liber chronicarum or Die Schedelsche Weltchronik, or Schedel's World Chronicle) which narrates universal history from creation to what it calls, "the end of the world", published in 1493 by Hartmann Schedel, German physicist and humanist from Nuremberg, with illustrations by Michael Wolgemut and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, edited by Anton Koberger, in that German city on July 12, 1493 with numerous engravings of urban centers of the era and with one of the first printed maps of Germany.
Travellers
Sedó continues: «it also has another section in which there are works that describe his hometown, published by travelers who visited Buenos Aires. This section consists of about 300 books and begins with the primitive one by Ulderic Schmidel, who went to that city with Don Pedro de Mendoza, and ends with the latest recently appeared and countless books referring to Argentina in general. It refers to Warhafftige Historien Einer Wunderbaren Schiffart welche Ulrich Schmidel von Straubing von Anno 1534 bis anno 1554 in Americam oder Newenwelthy Brasilia und Rio de la Plata Getham, printed in Nuremberg by Levini Hulsii in 1599. Its cover, engraved, represented the author mounted on a llama escorted by two Indians, a large coat of arms, a folded map of South America dated 1599, a portrait of the author and fifteen engravings with views of Buenos Aires, customs of the Indians of the Río de la Plata, combats between Indians and conquistadors, etc. . Schmidel participated in the settlement of Buenos Aires with Don Pedro de Mendoza in 1536 and these engravings are the first known graphic representations of Buenos Aires.
Historical documents
The scholarly Spanish collector Sedó informs us that "No less importance is attached to his magnificent collection of Argentine historical documents, among them the complete collection of printed matter from the time of the Revolution of May 1810, as well as all the sides and proclamations of General Juan Martín de Pueyrredón when he presided over the destinies of his country (1816-1819). In the documentary set, the executory letters of blood nobility on parchment stood out, with miniaturized initials and capitulars, coats of arms and colored landscapes. One of them, issued by order of Philip II, King of Spain, Portugal, etc. in favor of Alonso de Ureña de Aguado, a resident of the Villa de Cañete on April 20, 1570, had the following handwritten note signed by C. A. Pueyrredon: «My direct ancestor, through his paternal grandfather of María Maldonado de Torres married to Diego de Villaroel… (See Calvo IV p. 361)». Another was issued by order of King Philip II in Valladolid on June 22, 1571 in favor of the neighbors Juan and Diego de Pancorno of the town of Ameyugo. A third from 1685 was granted to Francisco, Rodrigo and Luís Merino de Bargas (or Vargas) by order of King Carlos II.
From the valuable series of documents on the English invasions, I highlight the no less rare printed one dated in Buenos Aires on November 2, 1807: "Legion of Patricians of Buenos Aires / State of the strength with which this Legion was in the days in which the Enemies invaded this Capital, in June 1807, according to the Magazine of the month of June of the same year." / Staff / Commanders: (Key) 1st Mr. Cornelio de Saavedra. 2nd Mr. Estevan Romero. 3rd Mr. José Domingo Urien." The Officers and number of Non-Commissioned Officers and troops of each battalion are mentioned, a final note is signed by Sergeant Major Juan José Viamonte.
As for the documents on the May Revolution, it is worth mentioning, among many, one of the very rare copies with the call for the open Cabildo of May 22, 1810, obituary or form printed in Los Expósitos (in its "Arroyo" variant) completed by hand, in this case destined for Pedro Viguera. Treasurer of the Royal Treasury. The variants of the printed calls to be able to go to the vote were, according to some, to favor the patriots and provoke the alleged fraud and their variants gave rise to important studies. Of interest to cultural history is a one-sided handwritten sheet, with the order of the Board to the Governor of Córdoba, signed by Saavedra y Moreno, dated in Buenos Aires on August 22, 1810, ordering the seizure of property belonging to the conspirators of Córdoba, arranging that the entire library ("bookstore") of Bishop Orellana and all the books of the other prisoners be boxed up, "sending them at the first opportunity...". In the margin, a record dated in Córdoba on October 4 was left: "the invoice for twelve drawers No. 1212 will be sent"; and on the back: "The kidnapped Books... of the conspirators are sent to the Capital." On August 26, the Board appointed Juan Martín de Pueyrredón Governor of Córdoba.
Cervantine Collection
The Cervantine section, which according to a 1942 reference included 400 editions of "Don Quixote", 241 of them in Spanish, from the 17th and 18th centuries, Sedó specified in 1947: "Concretely focusing on the Cervantine aspect, we must note that its magnificent collection of editions of Don Quixote - only Spanish - consisted of 371 different ones on May 20, 1947, without discarding the two from Lisbon from 1605, the second from Madrid and the first from Valencia, all of them from 1605, to which we must also add Due to their rarity and importance, those of Brussels 1607, Madrid 1608, Milan 1610, Brussels 1611, Madrid 1615; Prince of the Second Part, Brussels 1616, and 2 from Barcelona and 1 from Lisbon from 1617, for a total of 24, as far as I know, corresponding to the 17th century, all of them very difficult to find today.
To this we must add the high economic value of the collection. To have a slight idea, suffice it to say that in December 2022, during an auction organized by Sotheby's in Paris, the third edition of 1608 and the first of the Second Edition were sold for a combined price of 504,000 euros, including expenses and commissions. Part of the ingenious knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, from 1615, bound in the same volume, which had belonged to the Bolivian collector and diplomat Jorge Ortiz Linares, who had acquired them in London on December 21, 1936, the first copy for 100 pounds and the second for 750.
It is known that the first editions of Don Quixote printed during Miguel de Cervantes' life are the highest award in Spanish book collecting. If, in addition to what Sedó mentioned, we go through a more complete review, keeping in mind to evaluate the degree of rarity the remaining known copies existing in other libraries in those years, it turns out that of 24 editions made in the 17th century, Pueyrredón had those that I list by the place of printing, both inside and outside Spain. In Madrid: both parts (1st and 2nd) by Juan de la Cuesta, Madrid, 1605 (prince of the first part) and 1615 (prince of the second part) of which the existence of 8 copies of the first was known and 11 of the second; the second (1605); the third (1608) by Juan de la Cuesta, which was the last one corrected by Cervantes himself (there were 14 copies). Also those from Madrid from 1636-1637 and 1647 (3 copies were known of both); 1662 by the Royal Printing Press (2 copies were known); and 1674, the first illustrated one printed in Spain (5 copies were known). In Lisbon: from 1605 the two printed by Jorge Rodríguez and Pedro Crasbeeck (8 copies were known together), and the one from 1617. In Barcelona: two from 1617, by Sorita the first part and by Malevat the second (4 copies were known complete). In Valencia: the first printed in 1605 by Pedro Patricio Mey (the catalogs recorded 15 known copies). Let's now move on to the printed editions outside Spain. In Brussels: those of 1607 by the Velpius printing press (one of the ten known copies), 1611 by the Velpius and Antonio printing press (one of the 9 known copies), 1616 (one of the 9 known copies); 1617 (there were 6 according to the catalogues); and the one printed by Juan Mommaerteor in 1662, which is the first illustrated Castilian (6 copies were known). In Antwerp: those of 1672-1673 (there were 7 known copies), 1697 by the printing press of Henrico and Cornelio Verdussen and another of the same date and city, but printed by Juan Bautista Verdussen (3 copies of both were known). From Milan: that of 1610 by the Locarni printing press (8 copies were known).
There would be much to say about the 18th century editions, but it is worth mentioning the very rare Lisbon edition printed in 1775 by the brothers De Beux, Lagier and Socios, of which the Hispanic Society of America assumed that only its copy existed, without However, Pueyrredón had another one: there were two volumes in perfect condition. On the occasion of the Book Exhibition in 1940, he exhibited, according to the respective catalogue, The life and exploits and the ingenous gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, London, J. and R. Thonson, 1738. 4 volumes; Roman type, illustrated by a portrait and 26 full-page plates, originals by Vanderbank, engraved by Philipp Simms and T. Chambers [9].
Former president Marcelo T de Alvear presented him with a copy that was given to him by the King of Spain on the occasion of the visit he made to him as president-elect, a numbered copy of the special edition in four volumes by Rodríguez Marín, printed in 1915.
It is worth remembering that, in September 1942, the Buenos Aires Institute of Numismatics and Antiquities planned to exhibit the collections of specimens of Don Quixote by Pueyrredon and specimens of Martín Fierro by Guillermo Moores.
Finally, Sedó contributes: «There are also a good number of copies of editions of the Voyage of Parnassus, starting with a copy of the prince edition, and several and also very important ones of the Exemplary Novels and Persiles; some copies, no less important, of books of chivalry, and a copy of the prince of Avellaneda. It is worth adding here that the Prince of Avellaneda edition motivated a serious study of its owner [10].
Books of chivalry
In the library of a Cervantist like Pueyrredon, some copies of the more than seventy well-known books of the so-called "cavalry" genre could not be missing, unmistakable in their external configuration due to the uniformity of their folio format, with covers that stand out, filling them with a print. woodcut, with the engraving of the knight rider, a heraldic motif, or others such as a prince carrying the attributes of royalty and court scenes. And added to this in the text is the Gothic font in which they were printed, the double column arrangement of the text, the decorated initial and the engravings that illustrate some of its pages. It was a genre that flourished in Spain from the end of the 15th century to the first decades of the 16th century, dedicated to recounting the exploits and deeds of fictional heroes. It must not be forgotten that they were favorite reading of the imaginary La Mancha nobleman Alonso Quijano who treasured them in his library. In the end, Don Quixote was a new book of chivalry that surpassed the publishing genre that gave rise to it, and in its second part Cervantes surpassed the literary genre that gave meaning to his work and laid the foundations of the modern novel.
Collection destination
Years after his death, which occurred in 1962, part of the Pueyrredon collection was dispersed in various auctions and the rest remained in his family. As far as I know, there was a first sale of copies of Don Quixote, which I remember well appear in a catalog that I have in my library, but I cannot find it, and I do not remember its details precisely. In recent years, books and documents from this stately collection went on sale at auctions no. 1840 by Posadas Remates S. A. Bullrich Gaona y Guerrico, made in July 1994, and number. 140 of the new firm Bullrich, Gaona and Wernicke, carried out in July 2007.
Notes:
1. Juan Ángel Farini, “Bibliography of Dr. Carlos Alberto Pueyrredon”, in Bulletin of the National Academy of History, vol. XXXIII (1962), First Section, Buenos Aires, 1963, pp. 237-269.
2. Carlos A. [lberto] Pueyrredon, 1810 The May Revolution according to extensive documentation of the time, Ediciones Peuser, Buenos Aires, 1953. 657 pages and 111 facsimiles of printed matter and manuscripts.
3. Carlos A. [lberto] Pueyrredon. About old books. Exhibition of large bindings. Kraft Hall, Buenos Aires, September 26, 1945. 15 + one pages)
4. Carlos A. [lberto] Pueyrredon, Bibliophiles and antiquarian booksellers. Published in La Nación on Sunday, December 15, 1957. Buenos Aires, 1958. 16 pages. At the end, the note given by the National Academy of History to the Minister of Education, dated January 7, 1958, and Decree Laws Nos. 4831 and 5405 of the Province of Buenos Aires related to the transmission of books, magazines, diaries and periodicals.
5. “The old books of England” in Biblos. Official organ of the Argentine Book Chamber, year II, no. 10, Buenos Aires, January-February 1944, p. eleven.
6. Carlos A. [lberto] Pueyrredon, The Andes Campaign. Secret Letters and Reserved Instructions from Pueyrredon to San Martín, Buenos Aires, Sociedad Anónima Jacobo Peuser, 1944. One + 7l + two + 181 + twelve pages. With three portraits, 181 facsimiles and a plan of the battle of Maipú, without pages.
7. “The collection of Don Quixotes by Dr. Carlos Pueyrredon”, in Saber Vivir, no. 6, Buenos Aires, 1941, p. 16-20.
8. Juan Sedó Peris Mencheta, Contribution to the history of Cervantine and chivalry collecting. Speech read on March 14, 1948 at the public reception of Don... and the response of the permanent academic Don Martín de Riquer, Barcelona, Real Academia de Buenas Letras, 1948, p. 99-101.
9. Book Exhibition Catalog. Which is celebrated in the city of Buenos Aires under the auspices of the Ministry of Justice and Public Instruction to commemorate the Fifth Centenary of the Invention of the Printing Press, by Teodoro Becú, Buenos Aires, Talleres Graphicos de Guillermo Kraft Ltda., Sociedad Anónima, 1940, p. 109. When the copy of Pueyrredon's Don Quixote was included on the aforementioned page among the English editions, the description corresponding to the 1738 edition in four volumes and in Spanish was added to the English title, which is the first deluxe edition of Don Quixote, when the one relating to the English edition should have corresponded, which is from 1742 and in two volumes. The fact that both were printed in London by Jacob Tonson's publishing house, specialized in luxurious works by great English authors, perhaps explains the inventor's trocatinta.
10. Carlos A. [lberto] Pueyrredon, The false Quixote, Madrid, Gráficas Orbe, 1961. One + 11 + three pages.
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