8vo. pp. [iv], 10, 276. Contemporary Neoclassical red morocco, sides richly gilt with small tools to rectangular panels, inlays of green morocco to the corners and as central geometric cartouches bearing the gilt inscriptions ‘Consitucion o muerte’ and ‘En loor de D. Rafael del Riego’, the gilt panelling on the lower side incorporating figures of dancers and draperies, the upper with abstract motifs, flat spine decorated in gilt in compartment with gilt green morocco lettering-piece, dentelles gilt, pink endpapers, green silk bookmark.

The binding, with its motto ‘Constitution or death’ and ‘En loor de D. Rafael del Riego´, stands as a defiantly overt celebration of the ‘patriot martyr’ Rafael del Riego y Flórez, who, having led the uprising against the absolutist forces of Ferdinand VII, inaugurated the Liberal Triennium, and was then hanged in November 1823 after European monarchies agreed to stamp out insurgences of republicanism in Spain. It is safe to assume that this binding would have been commissioned fairly soon after del Riego’s execution (the book was published in 1822): in itself a statement of challenge to the international forces of restoration.

The history of this text is unclear. While the prologue claims that it had been prepared between 1799 and 1805, doubts regarding this dating were cast even at the time of the book’s publication, with the editors of El Censor believing the book to be, in fact, a disguised republican text (El Censor, 91, April 27, 1822). The text is part of a small group of ‘shadow constitutions’: documents which, firmly rooted in constitutionalism, between 1809 and 1823 projected political set-ups, plans and visions of remarkable ideological richness and diversity, proposing models that, to varying degrees, sought to balance the centralized and decentralized, progressive and conservative, radical and moderate.

Within this small canon, this Theory of a Political Constitution stands out as a moderate, workable model. It proposes a series of transitional measures aimed at facilitating the move towards a constitutional system, such as the creation of a board of directors in charge of the executive and ‘a senate of 30 to 50 people to help the executive branch with its advice’, complemented with what can be described as an elected ‘parliamentary’ body, a board ‘composed of national deputies elected in each province, [which] will have the power to oversee the interests of the nation relative to its freedom’.

Exceptional provenance: engraved bookplate of Sir Moses Montefiore to the front pastedown, Montefiore was an Italian-born businessman who was noted for his philanthropy and support of Jewish rights. Scion of an old Italian Jewish merchant family, Montefiore was taken to England as an infant. As a young man, he accumulated such a fortune on the London stock exchange that he was able to retire in 1824. “Sir Moses Montefiore Bart was born in 1784 and died in 1885, aged 100. As a young man, his uncle Moses Mocatta secured him a position as one of the only twelve brokers allowed to practise on the London Exchange. He married Judith Cohen, sister-in-law of Nathan Meyer Rothschild; and that connection helped him to make his fortune before the age of forty, when he retired from the Stock Exchange and devoted the rest of his long life to the interests of poor and oppressed fellow Jews.” (Sir Moses Montefiore´s life and times, biography from the Montefiore Endowment); blue ink dedication inscription to the front free endpaper ‘From Sir Joseph Sebag Montefiore to F. H. Jessel Esq., 2 Jan. 1901’: Sir Joseph Sebag Montefiore was a British banker, stockbroker and politician, nephew of Sir Moses, and his heir; Bernard Quaritch.

Rarity: OCLC locates 2 copies only, both in Spain, at the BNE, and University of Navarra.