The Scenes of the Life of Christ in the Virgen S. Mariano of 1623: The earliest extant Philippine estampitas?

Abstract

There is a dearth of knowledge on the emergence of books with illustrations in the Philippines. In 1623, the Virgen S. Mariano was published in Binondo, containing images which were printed on individual slips of paper and then pasted on its pages. Such images may be classified as estampitas, which for Filipinos are pocket-sized cards with religious meaning. Since works printed before 1623 do not contain images of this format, the illustrations in the 1623 Virgen S. Mariano can be considered the oldest extant estampitas printed in the country.