VILLAREAL (Manuel Fernandes de). Epitome genealogico del eminentissimo cardinal duque de Rechelieu. Y discursos politicos sobre algunas acciones de su vida. Pamplune: Juan Antonio Berdun, 1641. - In-4, soft parchment, smooth spine (period binding). Very rare first edition of this dithyrambic eulogy of Cardinal de Richelieu, his politics and his family. It was reprinted the following year in Spanish under a different title, and translated into French in 1643. According to Hoefer: "Manuel Fernández-Villareal, a Portuguese writer born in Lisbon, was strangled in the same city on October 10, 1652. In all probability, he was of Jewish descent, and from an early age left for Madrid, from where he was taken to Paris. He was subsequently appointed Consul of Portugal. Back in Lisbon, he was put in the dungeons of the Inquisition. An investigation established that he was ostensibly a follower of the Law of Moses, and he was consequently, says Barbosa, handed over to the secular arm. This unfortunate man recanted, and, horribly enough, was strangled nonetheless" (Hoefer, XVII, 467). The edition is illustrated with 3 plates showing respectively Richelieu's coat of arms, a portrait of him engraved by Michel Lasme, and the fold-out family tree of the same character. These three plates are often missing, and at the head of the book are some verse pieces. This copy is unusual in that it includes three leaves that are rarely found. These are the three leaves after leaf i3, containing the sonnet by Antonio Henriques Gomes and epigrams by Emanuel de Lima, François Berthelot, Leondrie and an anonymous author. In the majority of copies, folio i4, which follows the portrait of Richelieu, includes the sonnet by Antonio Henriques Gomes on the recto, while the verso contains the anonymous epigram and that of François Berthelot. Creasing and a few wormholes in the binding. Title doubled, wormholes in upper margin of same leaf. Several leaves browned. Restored tears to family tree, plate of coat-of-arms rebacked. Provenance: Alfonso Cassuto, with printed bookplate and cold bookplate on title.