ANDRADE, Manoel Carlos de (1755-1817)

Luz da Liberal, e Nobre Arte da Cavallaria, Offerecida ao Senhor D. João, Principe do Brazil

Lisbon: Na Regia Officina Typografica, por Ordem de Sua Magestade, 1790. Folio. (13 x 9 1/4 inches). xxvi, 454, [2] pp. Engraved frontispiece portrait of Prince D. João of Brazil, woodcut royal arms of Portugal pasted to title-page, engraved initials and vignettes, 93 engraved plates, 23 folding.

Contemporary Spanish calf, smooth spine with gilt bands, gilt-lettered dark green morocco label and repeat decoration in gilt, marbled endpapers

First edition of the principal Portuguese treatise on equestrian art, a royal production of exceptional scale, illustrated with a remarkable suite of plates on classical riding, training, equipment, and courtly horsemanship.

Andrade's Luz da Liberal, e Nobre Arte da Cavallaria is the great monument of Portuguese equestrian literature. Dedicated to D. João, Prince of Brazil and future King João VI of Portugal, the work was printed at the Royal Press in Lisbon in 1790 and reflects the refined riding culture of the Portuguese court in the later eighteenth century. It treats the horse and rider as subjects of discipline, science, spectacle, and aristocratic performance, bringing together practical instruction, classical horsemanship, veterinary and anatomical knowledge, equipment, breeding, training, and the ceremonial uses of riding. Manoel Carlos de Andrade was connected with the Portuguese royal riding establishment and wrote within the tradition associated with Pedro de Alcântara de Meneses, 4th Marquis of Marialva, one of the defining figures of Portuguese equestrian art. The book transmits the teaching of the Picaria Real while placing it in conversation with earlier European masters, including La Guérinière, Newcastle, and Pignatelli. Its scope is unusually broad: Andrade moves from the management and schooling of the horse to movements, bridles, saddlery, stable practice, veterinary concerns, and mounted games. The plates give the book much of its distinction. They depict Prince D. João, members of the Portuguese court, riding masters, mounted exercises, school figures, equipment, and elaborate equestrian games. The folding plates allow extended compositions of arena practice, including exercises with lances, canes, paired riders, shields, heads, and other forms of courtly mounted display. These images preserve a highly formal world of riding in which military training, aristocratic recreation, and public spectacle overlap. Although the technical portion of the work has sometimes been connected with the Marquis of Marialva, the book was published under Andrade's name and remains the central printed expression of the Marialva tradition. Its continuing significance lies in the way it records Portuguese classical riding at the height of its courtly refinement, shortly before the political and military upheavals that would transform the Portuguese monarchy and its institutions.

Ameal 108; Avila Perez 202; Brunet I, 264; Imprensa Nacional 416; Innocêncio V, p. 386; Palha 489; Soares, Historia da gravura artística em Portugal I, 304 and II, 575-87; Torrecilla, Bibliografia hipica, 25.

Item #43082

Price: $8,000.00