Esame e difesa del decreto pubblicato in Pudiscerì da Monsignor Carlo Tommaso Tournon [...] approvato, e confermato con breve dal sommo pontefice Benedetto XIII. presentata alla medesima Santità Sua da Fra Luigi Maria Lucino dell'Ordine de' Predicatori

4to (256x180 mm). XX, 495, [1 blank] pp. and [2] engraved hand-colored plates. Collation: a-b4 c2 A-Qqq4. Title page printed in red and black with Pope Bendict XIII's emblem engraved in the center. Salvioni's device engraved by Carlo Gregori on last leaf recto. Engraved headpiece and initials. Beautifully bound in contemporary red morocco, richly gilt spine with five raised bands, panels with four conerpieces within a a double gilt border, marbled pastedowns, gilt edges (tiny worm holes to the spine, front panel slightly rubbed). Some occasional light staining and browning, but a very good, wide-margined copy.
First edition (reprinted in Rome in 1729 and in Venice in 1729 and 1730) of this defense of the decree issued in 1704 by the papal legate Charles Thomas Maillard de Tournon (1668-1710) in Pondicherry, which forbade the so-called “Malabar rites”, the adaptation by the Jesuits of various traditional and customary religious observances in southern India. The decree was confirmed by Pope Benedict XIII in 1727. The policy of the Jesuits in India caused much controversy and condemnation, especially from the Dominicans, and the dispute became the subject of a lengthy arbitration by the authorities in Rome. Finally, in 1744, Tournon's decisions were incorporated into an authoritative papal bull, Omnium sollicitudinum. L.M. Lucini, the author of the Esame, which contains much discussion of Indian religious practices, was himself a Dominican, as was Benedict XIII, to whom the book is dedicated.
Tournon had been sent to India to restore harmony among the missions and to report to the papacy on their general condition. After India, he reached China in 1705 and issued a decree forbidding further toleration of the Chinese rites. The Emperor, offended by this action taken by a foreign authority against “his” Jesuits, ordered Tournon's imprisonment in Macao, where he died in captivity, and expelled all the missionaries who did not swear to observe the rules established by Matteo Ricci.
The two plates show the symbols marked on the foreheads of the Hindus and those allowed by the missionaries.
Italian Union Catalogue, IT\ICCU\RAVE\014022; Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica, Paris, 1905-06, II, cols. 918-19; B. Quaritch, The Society of Jesus 1548-1773, London, 1996, no. 128.