THE CAMBRIDGE COPY OF THE "IMAGEN DEL ANTECHRISTO"

The Imagen del Antechristo [sic] an octavo pamphlet of a single gathering was reprinted by the Spanish Quaker Don Luis de Usoz y Rio as part of the third volume of the series called Reformistas Antiguos Espanoles in 1 849 : apparently Usoz edited the book, which was financed by the English Quaker Benjamin Wiffen. Usoz owned a sixteenth-century volume which contained four works: Juan de Valdes's Commentaries on the Epistle to the Romans of 1556 and on the first to the Corinthians of 1557, both published anonymously and with false imprints; the Imagen, without imprint or date; and the Letter to Philip II, also anonymous, imprintless and undated. Usoz noted that all four works seemed to be from the same printing-house, and he gave reasons for supposing that the Spanish Protestant Juan Perez de Pineda was the author of the two last works included in his volume. The Letter, which refers to events in Rome which took place in 1556 and refers to Paul IV as still reigning and imposing his tyranny, must have been composed before the 18th day of the eighth month in 1559, when that Pope died. The Imagen may well have been issued at about the same time. The name of its supposed translator from the Italian, Alonso de Penafuerte (literally 'of the strong rock') might even have been a pseudonym of Juan Perez's, for Perez = Pero-ez, the son of Pedro -as in Matthew xvi.18. The guess about the date was plausible; the identity of Penafuerte with Perez remains doubtful.1 Usoz's copy of the original Imagen was either misbound or even wrongly printed, for he tells us that its pages (pianos) occur in the following order: 1, 6, 7, 4, 5, 2, 3, 8, 9, 14, 15, 12, 13, 10, 11. His copy presumably passed with the remainder of his valuable library to the Biblioteca Nacional at Madrid, where it may eventually be discoverable. Another copy, which seems to be similar to Usoz's, except that its unnumbered leaves follow one another consecutively, was later discovered in the Stadt-Bibliothek at Zurich. Thanks to that library we are able to describe it from xerox prints: