Note 50 — The Bibliographical History

All subsequent writers on the subject have derived their information from the sources we have already mentioned, and to a great degree have been influenced by the findings of Medina and Retana. The Rev. Thomas Cooke Middleton50 in 1900 confessed that he did not know what the first book printed was. Pardo de Tavera maintained his old intransigence, when in the introduction to his bibliography for the Library of Congress in 1903 he wrote that Medina’s affirmation that printing took place in 1593 “loses all validity in the face of the categorical statement of F. Alonso Fernández.”51 Medina did not comment further in his Adiciones y Ampliaciones52 of 1904, yet when the same year Pérez and Güemes53 published their additions to and continuation of Medina, bringing his bibliography down to 1850, they resurrected the 1581 Arte, but added no new evidence to prove their case. Blair and Robertson, in their tremendous, collective history of the Philippines, did not include a list of Philippine imprints in their bibliography,54 but referred readers to Medina and Retana with whom they agreed. To celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of typographical printing in the Philippines Artigas y Cuerva55 wrote a study which emphasized the part played by Blancas de San José, but did not deny the existence of the 1593 Doctrina. Retana56 in 1911 brought his work on the subject up to date, but retained all his major conclusions. In Palau’s standard bibliography of Spanish books we find the Doctrinas called “the two earliest books known to have been printed in Manila.”57 Finally, the most thorough recent work on the subject is to be found in Schilling’s58 survey of the early history of the Philippine press published in 1937. There is little that can be added to the evidence uncovered by these modern writers, but the appearance of the book itself enables us to say with certainty some things which they were able only to surmise. However, as regards the authorship and the circumstances and place of printing we are able, from the information given on the title, to carry the investigation somewhat further. [20]