the Dominican printing-house," in his listing of the book. The other
point is that he says in his introduction and repeats in his entry
that the Doctrina had a Latin as well as Spanish and Tagalog texts,
an erroneous translation of Adelung's "mit lateinische und tagalische
Schrift." He was hesitant as are all bibliographers, who must perforce
record the probable existence of a book a copy of which they have
never seen, in committing himself as to whether it was printed from
blocks or from type or by a combination of the two methods.

More positive and more succinct than Medina was T.E. Retana whose
earlier researches [48] into the history of the Philippines Medina
acknowledgedly made use of, and who in 1897 published his _La Imprenta
en Filipinas, Adiciones y Observaciones a La Imprenta en Manila_. He
took the material of Medina, added the evidence of Chirino and
Plasencia, and resummarized the problem. The letter of Dasmariñas
showed conclusively that a Doctrina was printed in 1593. Chirino said
that the first two whose works were printed were Juan de Villanueva and
Blancas de San José. Fernández stated positively that the first book
printed in the Philippines was the book of Our Lady of the Rosary by
Blancas de San José printed at Bataan in 1602. Aduarte supported this
without mentioning a title, place or date of printing. If we are to
accept all these statements as incontrovertible, how can the apparent
contradictions be reconciled? The answer had already been hinted at,
but Retana solved the problem with amazing acumen, and arrived at
four conclusions, which are here printed in his own words:


"A--That the Doctrinas of 1593, though printed at Manila, were
not executed in type, but by the so-called xylographic method;