Canção heroica a Magestade Serenissima de nosso Invicto Monarcha D. Affonso VI na singular victoria, que suas sempre justas, & agora triunfantes Armas alcançárão, na memoravel Batalha do Canal. Offerece a ....

Lisbon, Na Officina de Henrique Valente de Oliveira, 1663.. FIRST and ONLY EDITION. 4°, disbound. Woodcut initial and tailpiece. Minor soiling. Final line on title page cut close at lower margin. In good to very good condition. (1 l.), 13, (1) pp. *** FIRST and ONLY EDITION of this poem celebrating the victory of twenty-year-old D. Afonso VI at the Battle of Ameixial on June 8, 1663. In Spain it is usually called the Battle of Estremoz; here it is referred to as the Battle of Canal, after the parish near Évora where the battle took place. This was one of the major battles of the Restauração, which effectively ended Spain’s attempt to undo Portuguese independence, finally recognized in 1668. The Spanish had overrun southern Portugal under the leadership of D. Juan de Austria, natural son of Philip IV of Spain. The Portuguese, reinforced by English troops and led by Schomberg, inflicted heavy casualties and forced the Spanish to retreat across the border to Badajoz. The Spanish garrison at Évora surrendered soon afterwards.Frei Jeronymo Vahia (1620?/1630?-1688), court preacher to D. Afonso VI, was in his time a famous orator and poet. Born in Coimbra (some say near Viana do Castelo), he became a Benedictine monk in 1643, eventually becoming cronista of the Order. Over 500 pages of his poems, in the style of Gongora, appeared in Fénix Renascida, volumes I-IV. Innocêncio, who complains of his "violentas metaphoras, e conceitos exquisitamente esquadrinhados," confusingly adds that if he hadn't succumbed to the "mania que predominava entre os seus contemporaneos," Vahia would be considered one of Portugal's best poets. Of late there have been reevaluations and increased interest in the poetry of this period in general, and in this author in particular.*** Arouca V2. Innocêncio X, 138, and XVIII, 212; on the author, see III, 279. Barbosa Machado II, 530. Exposição bibliográfica da Restauração 1535. Fonseca, Elementos bibliográficos para a história das guerras chamadas da Restauração 460. Martins de Carvalho, Dicionário bibliográfico militar português (1976) I, 288. Not in Visconde da Trindade. Azevedo-Samodães 3413. Avila Perez 7773. On the author see also Zulmira Santos in Machado, ed., Dicionário de literatura portuguesa, pp. 45-6; Ana Hatherly in Biblos, I, 507-8; Saraiva & Lopes, História da literatura portuguesa (17th ed.), p. 483; also pp. 477, 480, 485-7; Dicionário cronológico de autores portugueses, I, 435-6. Porbase locates three copies at the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, all "aparado" (trimmed; two of the three have the text shaved). Not located in CCPBE. Not located in Rebiun. Jisc locates two copies, both at British Library. KVK (51 databases searched) locates only the copies cited by Porbase, and the one in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.